I found Guru Laghima by accident.
Or rather—his ideas.
Buried deep within Wan Shi Tong's archives was a fragmentary collection of writings attributed to a radical Air Nomad philosopher. Much of it was banned, deliberately obscured, or dismissed as heretical by later generations.
But I understood immediately why.
"Let go your earthly tether.""Enter the void.""Empty, and become wind."
Flight.
True flight.
Not gliding. Not assisted movement. But absolute freedom from gravity—an airbender unbound by the earth itself.
I leaned back slowly, absorbing the implications.
"I don't have attachments," I murmured.
No family.No lovers.No nation.No identity tied to this world.
Not anymore.
And with my talent—no, my nature—this wasn't just possible.
It was inevitable.
The writings made one thing clear: flight wasn't a technique. It wasn't something you did.
It was something you became.
Meditation alone wouldn't be enough.
I needed to remove internal resistance completely.
Which meant mastering my chakras.
Fortunately, this wasn't unfamiliar territory.
In my previous life, I had possessed an eidetic memory. I remembered—perfectly—the teachings of Guru Pathik. The exercises. The imagery. The exact order and purpose of each chakra.
I didn't hesitate.
I entered meditation immediately.
The first chakra—Earth.Survival. Fear.
I examined it calmly, acknowledged it, then released it. I had already died once. Fear no longer held power over me.
The second—Water.Guilt.
I felt nothing to cling to.
It opened effortlessly.
The third—Fire.Shame.
Gone.
The fourth—Air.Love.
There was no pain in letting it go—only clarity.
The fifth—Sound.Truth.
I had never lied to myself.
The sixth—Light.Insight.
My mind expanded, perception sharpening beyond the physical.
And finally—the seventh—Thought.
Pure cosmic energy.
The final barrier dissolved.
It took a single day.
No resistance. No struggle. No dramatic revelation.
Just inevitability.
When I opened my eyes, the world felt… lighter.
I rose.
Not consciously.
Not deliberately.
The floor simply fell away.
I floated several feet above the stone, legs crossed, hands resting loosely on my knees. There was no strain. No airflow beneath me. Gravity no longer had authority.
I had mastered flight.
True flight.
I slowly extended my limbs and stood upright in midair, drifting gently as if suspended by nothing at all. A thought carried me forward. Another lifted me higher.
I laughed quietly.
"So this is what it means," I said. "To be untethered."
Wan Shi Tong watched from the shadows of the upper shelves, utterly silent.
Flight wasn't power.
It was absence of limitation.
I hovered there, perfectly still, knowing one thing with absolute certainty:
No Avatar before me had ever reached this point.
And no force in this world would ever bind me again.