The old man standing opposite me carefully examined my body. He studied the crystal rings I had returned to my fingers — he wore exactly the same ones, with the growing quartz I was already familiar with. He examined my physique, for which Anubis had made me work harder than on Mount Shi Wong, forcing me to eat a lot and grow. Finally, he examined the pumpkin I had mechanically created behind my back by hammering it with abrasive. And all this just to come to one conclusion.
"Sand mage! Look, the Sand Mage," he pointed at me, calling the workers to whisper, not like a king, but like a weirdo. Someone recognised me, because I had repeatedly shown off my skills at work, and I had worked with others in the forge to maintain the high standard of our achievements. And most, if not all, of the people had heard of the quick and elusive Sand Mage.
I slowly turned my gaze to the collapsed piece of quartz, in which I could see my reflection. A copy of the man from the rumours, except that he wasn't three metres tall. Nevertheless, the strange Tsar did not continue to joke around.
"Heh heh heh, what an unexpected meeting... From my clothes and calloused hands, Boomi quickly understood what I was doing here. Despite the apparent madness, he laughed sincerely." "Will you show me the jammonite hall you were digging up?"
He turned directly to me with an expressive look. I don't know why, it's impossible to understand this man by his eyes, but it was clearly not just to escort me, there were soldiers for that. They seemed more serious now, because of my gaze, which made them clench their fists. Nevertheless, I heard whispers; they couldn't figure out what such a "cruel" and "insane" warrior was doing in an ordinary mine.
"No problem," I said, but I remained calm. The ceiling was reinforced, so there was no point in worrying about another collapse. I followed the smiling, stooped old man towards the crystal room. And once he had assessed me, I did exactly the same, clearly seeing the steel cables through the fabric on his body, only the fingers on his hands were more muscular than all the people in the mine. You could tell a lot about the Earth mage from his gait, and Boomer's was firm and unhurried, keeping his feet in contact with the stone for as long as possible.
As soon as we arrived, I looked around the familiar room, which I had helped to build myself. It was difficult to call it a simple room, more like a prison or even a torture chamber. In the centre, there was a ditch with stakes. If you fell on one and couldn't pull yourself out in time, you could say goodbye to your body. At the other end of the room was an artificial waterfall, fed by many water pipes to wash away unwanted dirt and stones.
"What is your name?
"Dagoth.
"...I've heard rumours among the blacksmiths that the Sand Mage has come to the factory. When I was a child, I also liked to run away to the mine to have fun," he stopped at the edge of the abyss and began a strange speech.
"It's not fun here," I replied honestly, calmly guessing what kind of blacksmiths had spread rumours about me.
"Really? I was wondering if it would be possible to speed up the work by causing a collapse. What if we tried to pull the entire vein out of the ground without digging around it? How much could we dig up if we worked twenty-four hours a day?
He was thinking... outside the box. I honestly put my hand to my chin and wondered how much strength these exercises would give me. Probably not too much, but the approach to using the Earth was interesting. Surely this was a good way to train for variety.
"You'll be a good sand mage," I admitted, assessing his character. And not just sand — I could tell for sure that the old man had several chakras open. I don't know how he managed not to master metal. Frowning, I met Boomi's gaze and boldly declared: "Maybe you can teach me some tricks? Or at least tell me how to open the second chakra?"
"What are you bothering me for, mole? But in response, he just rolled one eye, almost popping it out of its socket, and looked at me suspiciously. He... must have worked as a miner before," "I'm just interested in talking to someone who became famous as a fire mage slayer.
"Mmm... - I turned away disinterestedly.
"Of course, I know you're not as bloodthirsty as the rumours say. You destroyed every camp within my lands, but at least you buried the bodies, which is why no one has found them yet. Let me guess, you dug a mass grave twenty metres deep?
"No...
"Ah, I knew it! You buried them all thirty metres deep so that the wasps wouldn't lay their eggs in them," I tensed up almost reflexively at the mention of wasps, making a gesture with my eyes, while Boomi smiled smugly. "You should learn to control your anger. Otherwise, your soldiers are almost ready to attack.
He pointed at the men. As soon as I glanced at them, they tensed up even more.
"No...
"They have children, families, think before you do something stupid," and now I just rolled my eyes. Boomer was mocking me, it was clear as day. The soldiers, in turn, were all panting and sweating, the King was testing their nerves.
As soon as Boomi had frightened the soldiers with my figure, he quickly dismissed them. Such a magician obviously did not need constant supervision, so the two of us inspected all the work that had been done in the hall.
"I thought you were my old friend," he said calmly. "Quiet, with no hope left." "I didn't think anyone could control sand so freely, so I imagined an air nomad. By the way, their fighting style is similar to your methods of movement. You're trying to imitate them — flying through the air, elusive to projectiles," I immediately became curious about how long he had been watching me before deciding to intervene. "But you're missing something.
"You know the air nomads' movements so well? I narrowed my eyes. I didn't want to make any bold statements, but Bumi was the only mage alive today who had interacted closely with an air nomad. With Avatar Aang... Still, I had been able to experience their culture second-hand!
"Of course! You lack a touch of playfulness. You're too reserved for an earthbender," he said, and then he jumped forward, onto the jammonite spikes, one wound from which could have been the last in his life. But he just stood on the tip, somehow keeping his heels down, and raised his head to me.
"...There's nothing in the books about 'playful' wind mages.
"Yes. That's why I don't read books, they're not about the real world," he... made me squint again. I had said the same words to Sova, and now they had come back to me. That's how strange life is — despite the fact that Boomer's words most likely angered Afka, who had been hiding not far from me the whole time, I nodded anyway. And I jumped after the King, crushing the crystal as I touched it. I made a platform on which I could stand with just one foot.
Wind mages have come up with many ways to have fun, if you remember the canon. Come to think of it... Boomer is literally telling us how to open the second chakra, which is responsible for joy.
"Want to play? - he arched his eyebrow, smiling broadly.
"...I'm sorry. If it's not important, I want to leave the mine as soon as possible. Before something bad happens.
"Oh... you talk as if you think you're to blame for what happened today," I couldn't answer, just looked away. "Well, I can't play with such a boring person. I thought...
"Don't try to egg me on. There are objective reasons, I'm not in the mood at all," as soon as I managed to figure out Boomi's thoughts, the urge to train disappeared. But for some reason, looking at that puffed-up face, I felt like some kind of machine that was only ready to work... I really don't have time for fun.
So I wasn't surprised when a sharp crystal almost flew into my body, and I almost fell because of my unstable position on one leg. Boo-mee stood there with a bright smile, clearly showing me that he was putting such a large and hard stone on my guilt. And on my shame, too. Well, come to think of it, he probably wouldn't have mourned me if he had killed me — he must have at least four chakras open!
"Let me show you how wind mages have fun!" And breaking his rings, covering his hands with genomite just like I did, he started throwing sharp blades at me. This could indeed be called one of the ways air mages entertain themselves — books about their training methods described pillars where they tried to knock each other down. Boomi apparently decided to repeat this training, but added the harsh conditions of earth mages to it. And called it a game.
Dizn*
"You're stronger than me, stop," I said, creating a crystal sword that managed to deflect the attack, and frowned. He did not comply with the request, throwing a bunch of crystals at me while laughing cheerfully... It turned out to be more difficult to dodge them, and a growing sweetness enveloped my leg, so I had to fight them off first and then break the shackles. Out of necessity, I covered myself with a quick whirlwind and began to jump between the crystals. "I won't stop until I win!" His methods bordered on sheer madness... but realising that the only way to end this was to defeat him, I swirled clouds of abrasive material and sent the rapidly accelerating particles flying across the arena. If Boomi hadn't covered himself in crystal armour at the last moment, he would have been badly injured, but now he could rush towards me, completely ignoring the sharp spikes instead of the floor.
"The technique of the Crystal Knight Cheng! Such armour cannot be pierced with my abilities," I jumped high into the air, completely focused on how to defeat such an unexpected opponent.
Whether it was sandstorms, my blades, or stones torn from the ceiling, he didn't care about any of it, rushing at me like a tank.
"How can you have fun when you see a legendary move executed to perfection? The old man is out of his mind, he's offering... to unleash all his power on him," my pupils contracted. This was no time for safety precautions.
Pinning myself to the ceiling, I pressed my palms tightly against the stone. The moment Boomi jumped towards me, I tore off a giant piece and swung it at the laughing mage. It was foolish to hope that the trick would work, because he was just caught on the stone, but at that moment I poured my qi into my legs and pushed the boulder onto the spikes. At the same moment, the collapse began, the ceiling crumbled and buried the jammons, until all the spikes were finally destroyed. There was nothing left to jump on.
As for the Tsar, he calmly climbed out of the rubble. He looked around and realised that there was no more playing field...
"Hya-ha-ha-ha-ha!" he laughed in an old man's voice. "So that's how you decided to win. No playing field means no victory and no game.
"You said yourself that you could reach your goal faster by causing a collapse.
He laughed even louder, took off his impressive armour and, with a simple wave of his hands, made the jammons grow calmly upwards again. I even froze. No direct contact with the crystals, not a single effort, and the arena was restored. One might even think that he wanted to continue until he killed me, but... he calmly returned to the ground.
"That was fun. How about you?
"...Maybe a little," I couldn't help smiling — it was more interesting to fight when you let yourself go a little. But it still didn't open my chakra. Boomi himself put his hands behind his back, looking as if he had done everything he could.
"You have potential, you'll be able to have fun like a normal person sooner or later, but I advise you to learn about it from the water mages. Although it may seem that nomads know more about this, the water tribes specialise in your problem.
"Thanks for the advice," he said, raising an eyebrow at how seriously he was taking it.
"Oh, yes, if you say you want to leave already, I suggest you stop by somewhere and have some fun.
***
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