"Wait, Chi?" Li Ke repeated, looking down at the small hand resting against his sleeve.
"Exactly like this," Toph replied, her voice dropping into a focused, rhythmic hum.
Toph began to channel her energy, her brow furrowing in concentration. A heartbeat later, a strange, invisible power enveloped her palm. Li Ke could feel a resonance similar to Mana hovering there; though invisible to the eye, the subtle difference was unmistakable. It felt ancient, tied to the very marrow of the world.
As the energy brushed against him, Li Ke gained a clearer sense of the distinction. On a whim, he focused his own vitality, condensing a force in his hand that mirrored the energy Toph was projecting.
It wasn't drastically different from Mana. The main divergence seemed to be a higher concentration of mental intent—a more "spiritual" weight to the fuel.
Then, in a sudden burst, a cluster of orange flames erupted from his palm!
"You are a bender!" Toph exclaimed. To her senses, Li Ke's Chi had instantaneously converted into the raw, fundamental power of the world—the power of Fire, the element that governed energy itself.
"Sorry to disappoint, but I'm not a bender. This is the first time I've ever encountered this kind of power," Li Ke said, flexing his hand. He found it fascinating. While it felt like Mana, the execution was magical in a different way. Using it made him feel a faint connection to nature, as if he could issue direct commands to the world around him.
He sensed that the proper way to use it was to activate this specific energy to draw the ambient power of the heavens and earth into his body, achieving a "maximum result with minimum effort" effect. But it was just a fleeting intuition; he had no idea how to actually perform the technique.
What intrigued him most was that these summoned flames didn't seem to be just fire. It felt like they could be further amplified by his Mana Burst: Fire skill.
He wasn't certain yet. Trying to weave them together would likely require staggering amounts of practice and focus. To use it in real combat, he'd have to train both systems until they were instinctive. It would be like drawing a circle with his left hand and a square with his right while solving complex math problems simultaneously. Without total mastery, it was a recipe for disaster.
Toph's hand continued to grind against Li Ke's "spear," her expression complicated as she sensed the Chi flowing within him.
The fact that Li Ke had manifested the power of Fire spoke volumes about his character—at least according to the traditional traits of benders. It suggested a personality that was stubborn, aggressive, and fueled by ambition. Of course, not every Firebender fit that mold, but many shared those underlying qualities.
In her world, there were four primal forces: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. Benders trained their martial arts and refined their Chi to manipulate both their internal energy and the world around them. Fire was the power of energy itself—the ability to transform solid matter into raw power. Her own element, Earth, was the power of substance and solidification. Because of this fundamental opposition, Earth and Fire had a long history of clashing.
Meanwhile, Water was the power of flow, and Air was the power of expansion. Those were the textbook definitions, anyway; in practice, any element could represent the essence of the world depending on the user's skill. Like her, for instance—by sensing the element of Earth, she had gained the ability to "see" everything on the ground despite her blindness.
But something else was bothering her more.
"It's really weird, though," she muttered. "How come you can use bending when this world is still rejecting me?"
She was currently cut off from her powers, yet when Li Ke had clumsily channeled his Chi, she had clearly felt the surrounding world responding to him. He was just too much of a "rookie" to actually move the external power yet.
"I think you should focus on the task at hand first. We can chat about that later," Li Ke reminded her kindly, feeling his "spear" begin to soften due to the distraction.
"Right! Got it!"
...
"So, how many energy points was that?"
"Twenty."
"That's it? Are you sure you're not skimming off the top?" Toph demanded, planting her hands on her hips and "glaring" toward him.
"I already told you! This whole thing relies on your emotional state!" Li Ke sighed, officially exhausted by the girl. She was cute, smelled like fresh spring earth, and had a definite aura of power about her, but she was simply too high-energy. Even in the middle of that, her mouth never stopped moving for a second.
"Whatever. Doesn't matter," Toph said, dismissively waving her hand.
The motion sent the thick, white fluid on her palm flying everywhere—some of it even splattered across her own cheek. She didn't seem to care in the slightest, leaving a speechless Li Ke to reach out with a clean cloth and wipe the mess off her face himself.
"It does matter! Can you at least try to act like a normal person for five minutes?"
Toph's response was characteristically blunt.
"Shut up! Life's too short to waste on stuff like this! Now, tell me—how did you get this world to stop rejecting you?" She grabbed Li Ke by the sleeve, her expression turning dead serious.
To Toph, her bending was her second life; she wasn't about to let it go without a fight. Seeing Li Ke successfully manifest fire and interact with the environment had triggered a very simple plan in her head: find out his secret so she could eventually pay him back for making her do such an embarrassing task—not to mention making her listen to those bizarre sounds. It had been beyond uncomfortable.
"The only difference between you and us is that you wiped out those monsters single-handedly. If we had joined the fight, would the world have accepted us too?"
"I'm not entirely sure, but there's probably a connection," Li Ke replied, glancing at his interface as another point of World Power trickled into his account.
Before he could elaborate, Toph froze. Her grip on his arm tightened.
"Wait! I can feel it! The rejection... it's fading!" She looked up at him, her face flushed a deep crimson and her body trembling with a sudden surge of adrenaline. "Is it because of that weird power you're pulling out of me? If you keep absorbing it, will the world finally stop treating me like an outsider?!"
Toph's voice burst out in pure excitement. Her face was already beet-red—way beyond a normal blush—and her whole body trembled in little excited shivers she couldn't hide.
Even the second time Li Ke drew the World Power out of her, that soothing, enveloping warmth flooded her again, like sinking into a hot spring. And with all those constant, suggestive whispers echoing around them, the weird feeling inside her just kept building. When her small hand wrapped around Li Ke's thick length, a reckless part of her seriously considered... doing more with it.
She knew exactly what was messing with her head. Not him—not really—but those voices leaking from the little speaker-box, plus her own racing imagination running wild.
To Li Ke, though? This was straight-up nightmare fuel.
At first she'd shown zero reaction when he extracted the power, so he'd assumed it wasn't working on her. Turns out the girl had just been waiting for round two?!
She looks so airheaded and innocent—how the hell is she this sharp?
"Uh… yeah, this is probably tied to all that other stuff," he managed, scratching the back of his neck. "First time it's happened like this for me, too."
The words were barely out when he caught it—the exact spot where her fingers were pressed was identical to where a traditional chinese doctor would take your pulse.
His eyes narrowed.
"…Are you feeling my heartbeat right now? Checking if I'm lying?"
"No!"
The denial shot out instantly—firm, no hesitation, no waver.
Which only made Li Ke more convinced: this girl was a sly little fox.
"You sure?"
Toph instantly switched to full pitiful mode, voice turning soft and whiny.
"Look at meee… I can't see a thing. I'm so weak, helpless, and pitiful… how could I possibly read hearts?"
Li Ke couldn't stop the deadpan jab.
"Where's your shame? Your sense of decency?"
When the cute act failed to fool him, Toph launched herself forward without warning.
Her legs hooked tightly around his waist. Even though she was way shorter, she grabbed his collar and hauled herself up until their faces were inches apart.
"Who cares about that crap right now! Just tell me! If you suck all that weird, uncomfortable power out of my body, I'll finally be able to use my earthbending again, right?! Screw it—hurry up and pull it out already! I wanna test something!"
"..."
Li Ke stared at her fever-bright, excited face and genuinely had no words.
Then, in the very next heartbeat, Toph did something completely outrageous.
She yanked her top off in one swift motion, threw her arms around his neck, and crashed her lips against his in a hard, desperate kiss—only to pull back the second he started responding.
Breathing fast, cheeks flaming, she proudly patted her flat chest and thrust it toward him like she was offering priceless treasure.
"There! You get to see my chest! Satisfied now?!"
Li Ke: "..."
…There's literally nothing there.