Journey Across Universes

200 gems = bonus chapter

Fully support the story at:

patreon.com/FanFictionPremium

***

While we were waiting for the evening, we decided to take a walk around the city, bought a few trinkets, and most importantly, we came across Master Yu's private academy for Earth Mages, where the master was recruiting students and holding a free open class, which we decided to attend. Korra was dressed in the uniform of this school, and was placed in a line next to the small children who came to the academy to learn Earth Magic.

I watched this Master Yu's lesson from the sidelines, and I didn't like it too much, but the important thing was that Korra liked it. After the lesson, from the disappointed look on Korra's face, I realised that she wouldn't be learning from this master.

- Well, did you not like the master? - Katara asked.

- This academy was created not to teach children Earth Magic, but to make money from teaching children Earth Magic. This Master Yu may be a good mage, but unless you give him a bag of gold, he won't teach you... that's what he said. - Korra said, taking off the apprentice hat that all apprentices wear here.

- No problem, I have enough gold to make this Master Yu your personal teacher. From Gaolin to Kyoshi Island is only a twenty minute flight, as long as you study here, I can even fly to Suyuki every day. - I said.

- Let's go to that tournament, maybe we'll find someone better there... and if we don't, Master Yu will do. - Korra replied.

The tournament was held in a special arena, where in the centre, on a hill, there was a spacious stone ring, where the fights of Earth Mages were held. The arena was equipped with vertical stone benches for spectators, there were a lot of people at this tournament, but the seats nearest to the arena were all empty, because judging by some destroyed benches, the stone projectiles of the tournament participants could successfully reach here. We were a little more daring, so we took the very first row of spectators as close to the ring as possible.

Soon a muscular, shaggy-haired man - Xin Fu - came to the centre of the ring, he was the organiser of the tournament and its judge, and for the sake of demonstrating his power as an Earth Mage, he even suspended a huge stone boulder in the air and threw it into the first empty rows of spectators, and the stone fell not so far from us.

- That's why nobody sits in the front rows. - Korra remarked, 'But this Xing Fu isn't bad, at least you can see that he can do something.

- I don't know, I find Earth Magic so rough compared to Water Magic, I'm sure that now all the fighters coming into the ring will just throw blocks of stone at each other, without any finesse. - Katara said.

- I guess you're right. - I commented on the first fight of the tournament. In the ring fought a man named 'Boulder' and a huge fat boogeyman named 'Hippo'. In order to win the Earth Mages' duel, one challenger has to throw his opponent out of the arena by any means necessary, and now Boulder was just throwing stones at Hippo, but Hippo didn't care about these projectiles, he could literally chew them up... just one projectile hit Hippo's mouth when he was shouting something, and Hippo just chewed up the stone, turning it into rubble, and then started bouncing and rocking the stone ring. Clumpy somehow managed to hold on, then lifted the small stone section of the arena that Hippo was standing on, and threw that stone out of the ring with Hippo, which earned him the victory.

- Well, at least that was creative. - commented Korra.

The next fight was with the same Boulder, but against a fighter called 'Fire Mage', however, in this tournament, only Earth Mages can fight, so it's probably just a nickname, although the fighter was dressed in a Fire Nation uniform.... In fact, we never realised what kind of magic this weirdo had, because the Boulder defeated him in a matter of seconds, first submerging him under the ground, and then pushing him out of the ground with great speed to the front rows of spectators, right next to us.

- That clearly hurt. - Katara looked at the Fire Mage who was sprawled on the stone benches unconscious.

Apparently this tournament has a fairly simple order of fights, a mage fights until he loses, and then he is out of the tournament, and since the Fire Mage has not been defeated yet, he will fight either until he loses or until he wins the tournament. His next opponent was Gofer, he used his unique technique that allowed him to move quickly underground, but he pinned his opponent between two rocks and pulled him to the surface and threw him out of the ring.

The ring after the past fights was already badly damaged, and while Glyba was resting, the ring was repaired by a huge trained mole badger, this animal is a born Earth Mage, like all moles, the mole badger is completely blind and feels the world through Earth Magic, so all adult mole badgers possess Earth Magic at the master level. Crotobadgers are very fond of music, so with the help of playing a stringed instrument the trainer motivated the crotobadger to fulfil his commands, it took less than a minute before the ring was fully restored.

Next up was a fight between Boulder and a mage called Gekko, he also had a unique technique that allowed him to climb vertical stone surfaces using Earth Magic. For some assassin, this skill would be very useful, but in a tournament with certain rules, this Gekko was useless, and once again lost to Boulder.

The penultimate opponent of Glyba in the tournament was a fighter called Savage, he like all fighters used some trick, this guy had several ropes tied to stones, he threw the stones to the ceiling, where they were attached, and he himself, like a monkey, moved on the ropes.... The Savage wanted to push the Boulder out of the ring from the air, but was defeated, the Boulder only had to break the ropes with a sharp shot of a pointed stone, and the Savage himself flew out of the ring.

Now, in order to become the champion of the tournament, the Blind Bandit had to defeat the last champion of the tournament. This past champion walked solemnly into the arena, carrying the championship belt above his head... and all would have been well, except the champion looked like a little black-haired girl, about... ten years old, she was quite short. Next to her were the two girls she later gave her championship belt to, and these girls were twice her height.

- Erm... unexpected turn, huh? - I looked first at Blind Bandit, and then at Korra and Katara.

- Definitely... and is she really blind, or is that just the image? - Katara asked.

- I'm not sure, but it could be. - Korra replied and watched the fight between the huge man called Boulder and the little girl called Blind Bandit.

The one who saw who he was going to fight, Boulder said:

- 'It's embarrassing for Big Fudge to fight a little blind girl. - He was a strong Earth Mage, but clearly not the smartest.

- It seems to me that you're afraid, Fizzy. - replied the girl with a sneer.

- ... Glyba has overcome his sense of embarrassment, and is ready to bury you under a pile of rocks! - shouted Boulder.

- You may attack, Rubble... ha ha. - Blind Bandit pointed a finger at Rubble.

- So she's not blind after all. - Katara noted.

- I can see with my eyes closed, using the temperature of objects and the environment. And the Blind Bandit probably feels everything that touches the ground. - I commented, and soon the fight began... it was a quick fight, and Blind Bandit only had time to take a step before Blind Bandit pushed him out of the ring, creating three stone columns that shot out of the ground at Blind Bandit, sending him out of the ring.

- The winner and still champion is The Blind Bandit! - The referee announced, and the girl in the ring began to smile.

- I didn't even realise if Blind Bandit was such a strong mage, or if it was just a fake fight. - Korra said, and from the cheers of the spectators, it was clear that they had bet their money on Boulder, and now they had lost it in just a second.

Xing Fu returned to the ring, holding a baggie with something jingling in it, and announced:

- To make things even more interesting, I'm offering this bag of nuggets to anyone who defeats the Blind Bandit! - loudly proclaimed the tournament director.

- Now we'll see if it was a setup or if Blind Bandit is really a strong Earth Mage. I'll fight! - I shouted, and jumped from the audience seats into the arena, and while I was in the air, I transferred my supply of metal from the domain into a spatial pocket, which increased my weight by several centners. As a result, my landing cracked and rocked the stone ring.

- Umm... okay. - Xing Fu obviously didn't want anyone in the audience to agree to his proposal, because if Blind Bandit lost, the ringmaster would lose the bag of nuggets, - Start. - Xing Fu left the ring again, jumping into a special seat for the referee on the dais.

- Why are you so heavy? - Asked my opponent, I did not remove the extra weight just in case, so that it would be more difficult for her to push me out of the arena.

- I just have a wide bone. - I replied, standing still.

- Then I'll break all your wide bones! - shouted an angry little girl, and stomped her foot and broke off blocks of stone from the ring, which she launched straight at me.

- Angry lola. - I commented, still removing the extra weight, and dodged these projectiles with a side flip, when my foot touched the ring, a stone pillar rushed into me from the ground, which should have catapulted me out of the ring, but I was able to freeze my foot to the stone, and not to fly off the stone platform, as my opponent wanted, - Oh, I think I understand. - I took out a blindfold and blindfolded myself.

- You can go on, little girl. - I stood with both feet in the ring, and the Blind Bandit frowned, for I was now several times lighter.

- Now this little girl's going to bone you! - shouted the girl, and stomped her foot, making a clapping motion with her hands, two slabs came out of the ground beside me and closed in on me, trying to swat me like a fly.

- Not bad, way to go, baby, show me what you can do. - I said, away from the two plates.

I noticed that during the application of various techniques of Earth Magic, the area of the stone, from where the next attack will come from, changes its temperature a little, the stone rubs against the stone and heats up a little, so I can see where the next blow will come from, so I can get out of the target zone in advance. The Blind Bandit's next few attacks missed, and then she decided to use stone shrapnel, which I couldn't dodge, so I had to use Lava Magic to create a barrier of molten stone, which I immediately cooled down to a solid state, which is where the Blind Bandit's stone shrapnel hit.

- It wasn't Earth Magic. - said the girl.

- Yeah, it was Lava Magic, so if you're using it, why don't you demonstrate its full power? - I spread my arms out to the sides, and started turning my half of the arena into glowing lava, and continued to turn the rest of the arena into lava little by little,' Blind Bandit, how do you like my Lava Magic? Ah... you're blind, I'm sorry, but for the record, soon the whole arena will be flooded with lava and you'll have to jump out of the ring to avoid getting burned. - I removed the blindfold from my eyes.

- You won't, I'll throw you out of the ring earlier. - With some excitement said the girl, and standing in a low stance, began to raise her hands from the bottom up, and together with the hands from the arena began to burst out huge blocks of stone that stone wave flew straight at me, I defended myself from the projectiles walls of lava. The girl began to tear off pieces of stone from wherever she could, but only gave me more material to create lava.

- Give it up, little girl! You can't beat me, today I'll beat you in the tournament and tomorrow I'll conquer the world! Ha-ha-ha-ha! - I laughed like a villain, standing on an island in the middle of the lava. The ring was already ninety per cent turned into magma, and Blind Bandit had to create a high ground under his feet, as well as many walls to slow down the flow of molten stone, but these walls were melting, also turning into magma, and soon my opponent was standing on a stone pillar that was slowly sinking into the lava.

- Stop the fight! The Blind Bandit has won and her opponent is disqualified! This is an Earth Mage tournament, not a Lava Mage tournament! - Xing Fu shouted, feeling that his champion was about to lose and would have to part with his bag of nuggets.

- Okay, lava is molten rock. - I said.

- I don't care, it's not Earth Magic! You are disqualified! - replied the steward.

- I can teach any Earth Mage Lava Magic... oh well, I don't need your prize. - I absorbed all the heat from the lava and turned it back into stone, - Little girl, you're good, and you're really a champion among Earth Mages. And can you tell me who your teacher is? A fellow Avatar I know needs a teacher in Earth Magic.

- I was taught by mole-badgers. - replied the girl.

- They must be better teachers than Master Yu.

- Yeah, I know that master. He's a wimp. So you need a teacher for the Avatar? - Xin Fu jumped down to me, I can be her teacher. - that guy's eyes sparkled.

- No, you like money too much, and it's not a problem to pay you for a lesson, but I'm afraid you'll give the Avatar to the Fire Nation soldiers for a fee, and that's a lot of money, so you'll fall for it. - I took a look at the big guy.

- No way! - Xin Fu punched himself in the chest.

- He's lying. - added the Blind Bandit.

- I had no doubt he was lying. - I said with a smile and pointed the finger of my left hand at the bag of nuggets in Xin Fu's hand, causing the entire contents of the bag of bounty to melt and flow to the ground, and some of the molten nugget gold to fall on Xin Fu's foot.' Don't do anything stupid, or next time I'll melt your bones and burn you from the inside out. - I said to the screaming Xing Fu.

- Anyway, thanks for the show, so we'll go find a teacher in another city. - I jumped in with Korra and Katara.

- Well, why don't we ask that girl to be Korra's teacher? - Katara suggested, pointing at the Blind Bandit who was leaving.

- She's a strong mage, but her young age and blindness don't make her a good teacher. - I replied.

- Hela, can you really melt the bones inside a person? - Korra asked.

- Sure, I can melt bones, freeze or vaporise blood, I can do all that... uh, I've grown to love magic lately, I'd say I adore it. Well, it's almost night, we'll spend the night in the city, and tomorrow morning we'll go to the next one... or are you still going to learn from Master Yu? I don't like him, but it's not for me to learn from him. We can visit three more cities before we reach Ba Sing Seo. - I looked at Korra.

- Well, let me still try to learn from him, maybe for money he will try better, and if you do not like it, we will go further. - replied Korra.

- Well, then we'll spend the night at the hotel, and tomorrow morning you'll go to the academy of Master Yu. Here's the money, get a room, and I'll go before going to bed to train. - I gave Korra a bag of money and decided to follow the Blind Bandit.

The girl got out of the arena, and created a tunnel underground, and returned home underground... I didn't realise what it was all about at first, until the girl got home. I levitated above the city standing on a board of magical ice, it is not possible to fly quickly, but slowly and stealthily hovering over the city at night, it is quite possible. While tunnelling underground, the temperature of the ground changed, so I could see from above where the Blind Bandit had gone underground... and he had gone to a luxurious mansion with a huge garden, located in the prestigious district of Gaolin.

On the gate of this mansion was a coat of arms with a winged pig, as I learnt from the guard here is the Beifong family, they are the richest people in Gaolin, and perhaps the Earth Kingdom. The Beifongs also have a young daughter named Toph, but she is blind, and won't leave the mansion grounds for her own safety... hmm, looks like this Toph has a dirty little secret.