The wind blew gently over the treetops, swaying the leaves in a lazy rhythm. Appa flew at low altitude, his enormous body gliding through the sky with the same ease with which a whale glides through the ocean. The soft beat of his six paws marked a hypnotic rhythm, and the brush of air against his white fur produced a faint whistle that mingled with the distant song of birds.
On his back, Aang sat cross-legged, his back straight and his hands resting on his knees.
He raised one hand and moved it gently. The water from a small nearby bowl rose in a thin stream that danced around his arm.
—Water. Its tribes draw their strength from the moon and flow with the tides, adapting to any obstacle without ever losing their essence.
Then, Aang completely changed the posture of his hands. The empty bowl trembled and rose a few inches, changing shape.
—Earth. Masters of an unyielding will, as reliable and firm as the mountains they protect.
He caught the deformed bowl, set it aside, and with a twist of his wrist, a flame burst from his palm, illuminating Noah's face before extinguishing.
—Fire. Warriors capable of terrifying destruction, but also of the warmth that gives life and protects those they love.
Finally, he extended both arms and traced a wide circle. A gust of wind enveloped Appa's back, making both of their clothes flutter without destabilizing them.
—Air. Peaceful nomads with the strength of a hurricane when necessary and the serenity of a gentle breeze the rest of the time.
He paused, observing the white-haired boy sitting cross-legged in front of him, listening attentively.
—These are the four types of benders who lead the world today.
They had only been traveling for a couple of days, but this boy had already given Aang more surprises than he could have imagined. To begin with, in just these two days he had already grasped basic speech and could now communicate properly. His linguistic progression was abnormal, as if he absorbed every word and intonation and reproduced them with near-perfect precision.
But what had surprised Aang most was not that.
Without warning, the monk swept his foot toward the boy's head. The movement was fast and released a burst of compressed air that should have struck him in the temple.
But it did not touch him.
The boy gently struck the palm of his hand against Appa's back, using it as a pivot, and released a gust of wind that propelled him upward. His body spun in the air with unexpected grace, dodging the attack completely. Then, with some strange hand gestures, he generated two air currents from his palms that pushed him back onto the flying bison's back. He landed without a sound, with the same lightness of a leaf settling on water.
Aang stared at him. His expression was a mix of amazement and something deeper, something akin to hope.
—I really still can't believe there's another airbender alive besides me —he said, shaking his head—. But...
He frowned. After the boy had learned to communicate on a basic level, Aang had asked him about many things: his origin, his family, his tribe. But it seemed the boy remembered nothing. Not even his own name. It was as if he had fallen from the sky without a past or history.
Aang felt a knot in his chest. If this boy was a survivor of the extinct Air Nomad tribe—and everything pointed to that being the case—then it was his responsibility to take care of him. To teach him airbending properly. After all, Aang still felt deep in his heart that he had been responsible for his people's extinction. A hundred years of absence. A hundred years in which the Fire Nation had razed the temples and massacred his people. If he had been there...
He pushed the thought away with a slight shake of his head and gave the boy a pat on the head, who looked back at him with his completely mismatched eyes: one white and one black. Aang rubbed his hairless chin, thoughtful.
—But I really do need to call you something, don't you think?
He remembered the strange circumstances in which they had met: the sudden flash in the sky, the explosion. Like a meteorite fallen from the sky.
Aang smiled to himself and made his decision.
—Since you fell from the sky, how about... Cheon?
—Cheon?
Noah rubbed his chin, imitating his new teacher's gesture.
—Cheon... Heaven, huh?
He let out a faint smile, as if about to accept the name. But then, his gaze turned slightly distant, as if a distant memory had just surfaced from the depths of his mind. He blinked once. Twice.
—Nawaki... —he murmured, the name escaping his lips as if it had always been there—. My name is Nawaki.
Aang blinked, clearly bewildered.
—Nawaki? You remember? Just like that?
Noah nodded slowly, his expression still tinged with a strange mix of surprise and certainty.
—Yes. I just remembered. My name is Nawaki.
Aang observed him more closely. His eyes met Noah's again: one white, bright as the light of dawn; the other a deep, cold, silent black. That combination still seemed strange to him, but no longer in an unsettling way. There was something in that gaze that conveyed a presence difficult to describe, an immense calm mixed with a force and wildness that seemed to sleep beneath the surface.
He repeated the name once more, this time in a low voice.
—Nawaki...
For some reason, it sounded... right.
Aang ended up sketching a small smile and nodding.
—Yes... I think it suits you strangely well.
His gaze returned to Noah's mismatched eyes.
—Alright, Nawaki. If that's the name you've recovered... then so be it.
Noah smiled inwardly.
—If I'm in an eastern world, it's better to use a name that fits here. As the saying goes... "When in Rome, do as the Romans do."
Although it might seem strange that Noah was putting so much effort into taking Aang as his master—to the point of implanting a mental imprint and passing himself off as a person without memories—he had his reasons. Mainly, because he felt that traveling with Aang would be interesting. More than anything. After all, if he wanted to, he could simply capture the monk and study him thoroughly inside the Ancor Vantian, and Aang would not have the power to resist. The benders of this world were barely at the level of a second- or third-rank acolyte. But where was the adventure in that?
Besides, Noah had another motive. A motive related to his Magus cultivation technique.
Rank one was divided into two different cultivation branches.
The first was the cultivation of spiritual power, which had to increase and purify until reaching a total of two hundred points.
The second branch consisted of bodily elementalization: a process by which elemental particles were infused into one's own body. Once this process began, the body started passively absorbing elemental energy particles from the environment, integrating them into the cells to prepare the physical body for an evolution that would allow it to reach rank two. A carbon-based creature could normally only achieve an elemental density of eighty to eighty-five percent; only purely elemental creatures could reach over ninety percent.
This phase was further divided into stages. In the first stage, one charged the cells of the flesh with elemental energy. In the second, the cells of the bones. In the third, the organs. And so on until the sixth, where the heart and blood were charged. Once these six stages of elementalization were completed, a Magus's body was ready for an evolution in which it would ascend to rank two.
One could cultivate both paths simultaneously, or prioritize one first and leave the other for later.
As soon as he entered this world, Noah's skin pores had opened, eagerly absorbing the elemental energy from the environment and charging it into his muscles and flesh, strengthening his cells. Thanks to his genetics, which granted him various first-level elemental affinities, Noah could charge his cells with different elements. And he did not plan to limit himself to just one or two.
In his spiritual vision, he could see elemental particles of four colors fluttering around him: red, blue, green, and brown. Tiny points of light that danced in the air like fireflies before being drawn toward his body and disappearing through his pores.
As for how he had learned airbending... with his talent and the ability of his right eye to see Aang's internal energy circulation system, it had not been difficult for Noah to imitate it after seeing it just once. The patterns of vital energy flow, the trajectories it followed through the meridians, the way it transformed into gusts of wind when released... everything had been etched into his memory with a single demonstration.
—Speaking of which, I really need to learn energybending.
Noah looked away from Aang and closed his eyes, as if entering a brief meditative state.
—Controlling my own vital energy and that of others at will… it's an impressive technique. But everything in its own time.