Alec had never watched the whole series, but one of his friends back home wouldn't stop talking about it — arc after arc, twist after twist, they'd spoiled nearly everything with wild, breathless enthusiasm. At the time, Alec had just laughed and listened. Now, he found himself clutching those memories like threads of a life that felt galaxies away. He missed them. More than he expected.
But he pushed those thoughts aside, gently touched the fan under his robe.
"You alright, Alec?" Linya asked gently, sensing his quiet.
He nodded. "Yeah. Just a lot to take in."
"You mentioned you'd lost your memory," Rhoen said. "Did you mean just your name, or… more?"
"I remember bits and pieces. Things that don't make much sense," Alec answered honestly. "People, places… none of them familiar. But it feels like I know of them, just not how or why."
Alec sighed silently in his heart — pretending memory loss is not that easy.
"Could be head trauma," Rhoen muttered. "Or something deeper."
Linya offered a kind smile. "Whatever the reason, you're here now. And you're safe."
Alec nodded again. "Thank you."
The warmth in their voices was real. Alec could tell. But his thoughts drifted back to Zuko — to Agni Kai, banishment, the scar. The boy prince was already out there somewhere, lost, angry, alone.
He knew where this story led. Or… he thought he did.
He exhaled slowly.
No. He folded those thoughts away, neat and tight, and tucked them into a quiet corner of his mind. If this world had taught him anything already, it was that rushing ahead " blind " did more harm than good. He would learn Bending.
Right now, what mattered was this moment: warm rice, steamed vegetables, the soft clink of chopsticks against bowls, the creak of an old teahouse's floorboards, and the two kind strangers who had given him shelter.
Then Alec spoke, voice steady but soft.
"I want to help," he said. "With the teahouse. I can do simple things — wash dishes, wipe tables, carry trays. Anything, really."
There was silence again — but this time, heavier.
Linya and Rhoen didn't respond right away. Alec could feel the weight of it — unspoken hesitation, not out of cruelty but concern. The kind that made people fidget and glance at one another without saying anything.
They didn't want to say no — but they didn't know how to say yes.
***
Six months later.
Many things had changed.
At first, everything was hard. The weight of blindness wasn't something Alec could ignore, not in a working teahouse where cups chipped, tables creaked, and hot kettles hissed. Even with his heightened awareness, the first few weeks were full of bruised shins, spilled tea, and quiet apologies.
But practice made perfect — and Alec practiced.
He mapped the Ember Leaf in steps and touch. He learned which wood plank creaked by the kitchen door, how many breaths it took to cross from the washbasin to the storeroom. He found the rhythm of the place — like following the beat of a quiet song.
His movements began to align. He moved like water.
During these months, he would often hear the sharp bursts and low hums of firebending from the training yard next door — the baker's son and the smith's apprentice sparring every other afternoon. He didn't see the flames, but he heard them. Felt their heat on the breeze. Counted the time between strike and grunt, breath and flare.
He started mimicking them when no one was looking. Movements stiff at first — arms too wide, feet unsure. But repetition carved instinct. Like the steam that curled from boiling water, his form began to shape itself.
On the third day of doing so in secret, he raised his hand toward a lone candle in the storeroom.
It wobbled.
The flame trembled — then danced, just slightly, to the left.
His breath caught.
Then — a soft chime in his mind.
[Skill Obtained: Firebending – Level 1 (1/100)]
He froze. A pulse ran through his hand, warm and sharp — like being pricked by a sunbeam.
The fan at his hip vibrated faintly.
Alec stood there, stunned. He hadn't felt firebending. Not in the way stories described — no surge of power, no roaring heat. Just… flow. Like an idea half-formed. A knowing without explanation.
But even as his conscious mind wrestled with how, deep inside, he understood: it wasn't instinct. It was feedback.
The System was doing these things. Feeding intuition into him like a trickle of hot spring water. Not dumping knowledge, but slowly guiding.
And with every candle flicker, every movement refined in the quiet of night and that trickle grew.
His level grew in leaps and bounds — faster than he could've imagined.
By the end of the week, the whisper of fire that once trembled at his fingertips had started to obey him with a little more confidence. The flame of the candle no longer quivered — it bent and enlarged by one size. Slowly, deliberately.
[Firebending – Level 2 (1/500)][Host Level Up: Level 2 – Early Stage]
The system notifications had started to feel like tiny sparks of validation — reminders that he wasn't just surviving in this world. He was learning it.
Curious, he tried to do the same with water.
During his nightly chores, he stood by the washbasin, focusing on the cool surface of the still water. He raised his hand the way he thought waterbenders would do but due to no actual experience , it was all in vain.
Nothing happened.
He tried again the next day.
Still nothing.
It was like calling across a canyon and getting no echo back. No resistance. No reaction. Just… silence.
After the third day, he stopped trying. Not out of frustration, but acceptance.
Maybe fire was simply the only element he had affinity with — for now.
But then came the bottleneck.
After reaching Level 2, progress slowed.
The same moves — punch, sweep, twist — yielded diminishing returns. He practiced harder, longer, sweat pooling in the back corners of the teahouse. But the numbers crawled.
Until he understood why.