Chapter 28
Even though the situation was very dire, Sokka wasn't that worried. Panicking about such things would lead him nowhere.
So instead, he used the mightiest stat he had. Unlike what he usually showed with his overwhelming speed, many people would assume that Sokka's strongest trait was his Agility, but that wasn't true as his strongest trait was his... Luck.
[Gatcha Activated]
[Rolling Random Gacha]
[You have gained Skill Card: The Power to gargle Water and shoot out fireballs.]
Immediately, Sokka summoned the card out of his inventory and into his hand, activating the item's effect.
[For 5 Minutes, you have gained the ability to gargle water and shoot fireballs.]
[Due to being from a different world, the ability is weakened by the world.]
'Does the Luck stats even work?!' – wondered Sokka, a little annoyed at getting such a bad ability. But he was okay as he had twenty-seven more Gocha rolls. So he could get something useful by the next draw most likely. "Tch, Luck, what a shitty stat."
Though, in that split second, he thought of how to use his new temporary skill and got an idea. Suddenly a smirk came to his face. "If this works out, Luck, you are the best amongst the stats."
The Gamer Interface didn't respond as it didn't have AI intelligence. But the Spirit Tree was confused as Sokka spoke to himself.
"Did you finally go mad?" Spoke the Spirit Tree, its voice was rumbling, like that of a crashing building. "Has the feeling of death being so close finally knocked some sense in your head?"
"Huh?" Sokka looked at her confused. "The hell are you talking about? I just figured out a way to beat you."
He swiped his hand, and the forest around him immediately dried up, as the trees, leaves, and even grass had all of the water inside of them drawn out. Sokka used some of the water and turned it into water spikes, throwing it at the tree. But it was able to easily break the ice and even seemed to grow a little bigger and stronger.
"As expected," muttered Sokka. "Waterbending at this level was useless against it."
As water flew towards him, the tree swiped its vines at incredible speeds. But with his [Danger Sense] Sokka had jumped back, he knew that even with the Skill, if he got in close range, sensing the danger was useless if he couldn't dodge it.
He manipulated the water down his throat and gurgled it. Suddenly a heat rose up his throat, it wasn't too hot, just enough to make his throat comfortably warm.
Spew!
Sokka shot out a fireball like a bullet out of his mouth.
"Damn it!!" Yelled the tree as it sensed the danger, its vines all moved at one and formed a giant shield just to stop a small fireball.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The explosion that happened surprised even Sokka, as he was pushed back from the aftermath and crashed into a tree. He looked in surprise as the dust cleared up and a charred, barely alive tree stood there. No longer did the sakura tree have its beauty, and by the dark ash covering it seemed more like a cursed tree.
Suddenly Sokka started making sense of the whole situation. "Oh! I get it now! Not only are you weak to fire due to being made of wood, but even the poison that your vines produce is very flammable."
The tree didn't say anything, nor did it move. Sokka chuckled. "I was right on that one it seemed like. Also, the reason you didn't dare fight the firebenders was because of this too, right?"
"Young man, don't assume to know more than you actually do…" spoke the half-dead tree. Its voice was raspy as if it had been drained of all liquids in its body.
"Oh~ that's some fighting spirit," Sokka mocked the creature. But with his [Acting] skill, he could read others' intentions quite well. And he was somewhat able to tell that the tree had alternative intentions. "Anyway, I can guess that if you don't care about the forest. Then you must be here for me then?"
That had been his first guess too, but he didn't want to reveal too much. After all, he wasn't supposed to know what would originally happen.
"You are somewhat right, but I was ordered by someone to capture you. If you let me live I will-"
Fwish!
Sokka's spear flew through the air and cut the brittle tree into a thousand pieces. "No thanks, I don't like letting my enemies walk out alive and then grow to become stronger enemies. That would be a cliche mistake and kind of dumb."
[You have killed: Heart-Eating Willow Tree (Lvl 159)]
[You have Leveled Up]
[You have Leveled Up]
[You have Leveled Up]
A lot of level-up notifications popped up and Sokka was at Level 38. – 'Power leveling for the win. Killing high-level monsters is way faster than doing so with low leveled people.'
Though he didn't say it out loud, Sokka had noticed something else too. The Spirits seemed to have very high levels, probably because they were very long-living beings. They were thousands of years old, and their power and existence accumulated for a long time.
Now Sokka couldn't wait until he got access to the Spirit World. Just imagining how many high-leveled beings he would be able to kill made a chill go down his spine. How old were spirits like Raava and Vaatu? Their levels had to be incomprehensible.
Like always, Sokka made sure to put all of his stats points into Luck. Which brought Luck to 186, even though he passed the 150 thresh mark, there was no new skill like it had been like when Luck reached 50 and 100. But that only meant that after the hundred thresholds had been passed, now a new Skill related to luck came only after each hundred passed. Meaning the next time he might gain something will be once his luck reaches 200.
Sokka looked around and frowned in disappointment. There was nothing dropped by the tree. No special item, no nothing. "Well, you win some, you lose some. My power affects me, but not the world."
Ever since coming to this world, Sokka had been experimenting with his Gamer Interface and seeing its limits. There seemed to be one absolute rule to the ability, and that was it couldn't affect the outside world at all. The only way it could do so was in the roundabout manner of changing Sokka who then could cause change to the environment.
As he walked off, Sokka's mind was preoccupied, trying to think of ways to cheat the system. Though he couldn't think of something to exploit, one day he planned to have at least one Exp Farm. Since he knew that if he was somehow able to find an exploit, the system wouldn't fix itself because it wasn't an AI.
Sokka casually walked towards the village as night came about. He wasn't in a rush and instead tried to think of strategies on how to kill off spirits.
As he walked back to the village, Sokka was just in time, a couple of houses had been destroyed by Hei Bai, but that was all within his expectations.
"Young man!" Kay-fon, the elder who had met him before, came and looked at Sokka worryingly. "The Avatar has chased after the beasts."
"Well, I am sure he can handle it," Sokka shrugged, not worried about the avatar. It was his job to take care of spirits. "Anyway, where is my sister?"
"Your sister… well… she was kidnaped by the spirit while trying to help the Avatar," the old man nervously explained what had happened. But as he glanced at Sokka's face, the old man fell on his back and a terrified look appeared on his face.
Fear gripped his heart as he caught sight of the young man's expression.
Fwish!
Sokka's body disappeared in front of his eyes.
-Sokka POV-
I moved quickly past the trees as I used the map to help me track the spirit that had kidnapped Katara.
What worried me wasn't Hei Bai, since he wouldn't hurt people and even helped Aang on several occasions. But if the Tree Spirit's words, who I just killed, are to be trusted, then I had caught the attention of another strong spirit. One strong enough to order around something like the Tree Spirit.
Now my sister being in the Spirit World, that would be the perfect opportunity for whoever had their attention on me to try and lure me out by using Katara. At least that was what I would do if I wanted to lure someone out.
Traveling through the trees, from branch to branch, the forest seemed to melt for a split second.
[You have entered the Spirit World]
Yeah, I had noticed that even without the help of the notification. Looking around, everything seemed normal, as if I was still in that same forest. Even the branch I stood on seemed the same.
Immediately, I tried to use bending, but as expected, it didn't work.
[You can't use bending in the Spirit World]
Yeah, technically unless one entered with their body, they wouldn't be able to use bending. Or maybe it was just certain parts of the Spirit World one couldn't bend?
I didn't know the specifics of this, but it didn't matter as I still had the spear [Sky Piercer] in my hand.
"Brave warrior," suddenly a feminine voice rang through the forest, looking around, I saw nothing. Suddenly it felt like someone breathed in my ear. "I like strong people, without bending. They are just my type of man."
Immediately, I swung backward, my spear cutting through the air at incredible speeds. But it was for naught, as nobody was there. Taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and closed my eyes. "If you want to talk, then how about at least showing yourself?"
"I am afraid that if I did so, that spear of yours would quickly find its way into my heart. Brave warrior." She seemed almost ecstatic to be talking to me.
But right now, I didn't mind her continuing to talk. Because she just unintentionally gave away why she was observing me. It was because I was a so-called, strong warrior without bending. That must be what attracted her attention.
The chances of this being the spirit who ordered the Spirit Tree were high.
That was good. Now I could take care of this problem before it became too troublesome. Though I had come to the Spirit World, where my opponent had the advantage and I couldn't use bending.
I had predicted a situation like this and had just the countermeasure against it. First, let's try and find my enemy's identity.
[Information Gocha Roll initiated]
[Random Gocha Roll initiated]
It was a little sad that I had to use two Gocha rolls as those were limited. But that wasn't something I minded too much. After all, I had just leveled up eight times just recently and I still had eight new rolls. If this spirit is killed, then these rolls should be easy to replace.
I will show you bitch. You don't fuck with a lucky guy like me. Even if I had to use all of my Gocha rolls today, this new enemy had to die.
Chapter 29
Sokka didn't like mystery and surprises in his life. So, the first Gocha that he had activated, finally yielded results.
[Information Gocha Results]
[The Spirit known as the Evil Lady has taken notice of you.]
That was a roundabout way of saying that the thing here with me was the Evil Lady.
Fuck. That name didn't give me a lot of hope of beating her.
[The Spirit called the Evil Lady is also known as the Spirit of Strife.]
Strife? So that meant that she was a spirit that liked to cause conflict? Maybe she wanted to cause trouble and difficulty for me. If her other name wasn't the Evil Lady, then he might assume her intentions might have been to help him through creating challenges.
But now, with that name alone, Evil Lady, he knew it meant that her intentions for him weren't good.
[The Evil Lady has tricked many spirits to serve her]
[The Evil Lady has the hobby of making deals]
The information about her kept pouring, and it wasn't good at all. So pretty much, no matter what, Sokka understood one thing very clearly. – 'Don't fucking make a deal with her.'
Then came the rest of the information. Which made Sokka look at it strangely.
[A cat in Ba Sing Se is pregnant (pinged on Map)]
[Lee Chen's wife is having an affair with the neighbor (pinged on Map)]
[A Dai Li in Ba Sing Se is having a homosexual relationship with one of his colleagues (pinged on Map)]
'Huh? What the hell? The latter part of the information bracket was completely useless.
Was this how the ability would have worked normally if I didn't have high luck?' - contemplated Sokka, glad that he had high luck offset the Gotcha, or else it would have been a terrible ability. In actuality, it could have even brought things that could be harmful to him.
At least now Sokka knew the identity of the woman who had an unnatural interest in me. Though that was what the information said, he hoped Gocha wasn't talking about some other random spirit.
This was the problem with Luck, it was very unstable and one couldn't tell if it worked or not.
[Random Roll Finished]
[You have gained: Boots of Teleportation]
[Boots of Teleportation (Rare)]
[A normal-looking pair of boots that give the user the ability to teleport into a place they have been to before. To use you just have to think of the place and clasp the boots, then you will be teleported away.]
[Usages Left (10/10)]
Sokka clenched his fist and ground his teeth as he saw the new notification. This was the kind of situation he didn't like and knew that escaping here was the best choice.
No matter how Lucky one was, if they act foolishly then they will be killed. Even Luck could only improve things up only until a certain level.
But understanding the futility of being angry, he chuckled and shook his head. He stared at the space in front of him. "I don't know who or what you are."
He lied through his teeth, trying to have his enemy drop their guard. "But I will kill you one day."
"Oh~ that's scary, what did I even do to earn that kind of hate?"
"A strong spirit appears, attacks me, my sister disappears and then you come around," Sokka said with an angry look in his eyes.
He was confident that the woman was unlikely to be involved with Katara's kidnapping. Still, he said these things to misguide her and keep his abilities secret.
"Cmon now, don't blame me for everything," though he couldn't see the woman, Sokka felt like she was pouting in annoyance.
There was a strange hypnotic tune to her voice. "Also, I wasn't involved with your sister's kidnapping. It was another spirit. Also, I genuinely am interested in you and would like to make a deal that would benefit us both."
Due to his information Gocha, Sokka knew that making deals with this woman was troublesome and might lead him to a path of slavery. So he took out a small vial from his pocket, he pulled it from his inventory but this action was to disguise his inventory.
He threw the vial in the air and pulled out two flintstones from his pocket too and threw them, the first stone broke the glass vial, and the second flintstone connected with the first creating a spark. The vial was filled with alcohol.
Booom!!!
A small fire blew out and into the trees, starting a small fire. By now Sokka was gone from his place and had teleported away.
"What was that?" asked the feminine voice, not having noticed just how Sokka had disappeared.
The burning alcohol landed on the trees and they started catching fire. "Tch, I like men who are strong, but not those that are also smart enough to see through me. Sadly, he seems to fall in the second category."
Sokka was back in the forest close to the village he had last visited, his eyes closed in concentration, he took a deep breath, and opened them. "Surprisingly easy to use," he murmured while looking at the new boots. They looked like shoes made out of alligator skin, the ones that would suit him very well if he was a pimp of course.
"They look ugly as hell though."
When he walked back into the village he saw everyone was safe and had returned. Even Katara had come and once she saw Sokka she rushed with tears in her eyes and hugged him. "Where were you?! I was worried sick!"
"Looking for you, obviously, and then I got lost," Sokka said as if it was her fault that he got lost.
Immediately Aang could sense that a wave of bickering would occur between the two siblings if he didn't do something about it. "Uhhh, I think we should go… Sokka, I will explain what happened later. But we need to set off right now. Avatar Roku said that he had something important to tell me."
Sadly, neither of the siblings paid attention to the avatar, as they continued their bickering.
"So it is my fault that you got lost?!"
"Well, you said it."
"And you implied it!"
"I have no recollection of doing that."
"You just did it!"
"Did I?"
The siblings' bickering went on for quite a while and lasted even after they got on Appa and set off into the air.
Aang this time had been the one to receive the villagers' thanks and procure the supplies, even though Sokka usually did that.
But the verbal arguments stopped when Sokka caught sight of a little fox hiding behind Katara and a malicious look appeared on his face.
Sokka ran his hand through the animal's fur as it shook and he nodded. "I told you to take care of Katara… it seems like you failed," the little fox quickly nodded its head as if to apologize.
But that didn't seem to phase its owner as he continued. "You have quite the nice fur. I wonder how much it will sell on the market?"
The little fox paled at the sight of Sokka, as he implied that he would skin the small creature and sell its fur.
"Hey! Don't bully Kiwi!" Katara intervened and hugged the little fox close to her chest. "She tried to save me, even though she clearly couldn't do anything."
"Who the hell is Kiwi?" Sokka inquired curiously.
"The fox, obviously," she answered, snidely. Sending a smug smirk at her brother. Which in turn annoyed her internally because he didn't seem to have even seen the look she sent him.
"His name isn't Kiwi. As its owner I have named it Emergency Food Number 2." Sokka insisted. Though the little fox wasn't what she seemed, he knew that for now, the creature seemed quite useless.
"What?!" Katara was again mad at her brother, unable to hold in her annoyance she ended up yelling. It sounded like Sokka had a natural talent for getting under her skin.
"Number 2? Then who is Number 1?" Aang was curious about other, smaller things. Because he knew that deep down Sokka would never hurt Kiwi…probably... maybe… hopefully?
The more Aang thought about it, the more it seemed like Sokka might one day decide to get a fox-leather hat. He seemed like the kind of guy who would do something like that.
"Momo, of course," he responded without missing a beat.
"You can't eat Momo!" Aang refuted him and Momo made some angry lemur noises, trying to scare Sokka off.
"Also Kiwi is a girl," Katara added on as an afterthought. By now she had calmed down by meditating on her feelings. She had gotten good at this, as her brother's behavior was often very irritating and she had to learn to control her emotions the hard way.
"Wait. Really?" Sokka inquired, with an uninterested look that showed that he didn't care either way. "Maybe if SHE was more useful then I wouldn't call HER Emergency Food Number 2," in the end he kept emphasizing Kiwi's gender, just to annoy his sister a little.
His demeanor was super effective, and not long later, they were back to quarreling with each other.
As it went past midnight, Sokka was the one holding Appa's rings as Katara, Aang, Kiwi, and Momo fell to sleep. The sky bison had rested and slept in the village before they had set off, so it should be able to travel through the night and by morning reach the Fire Temple.
At least that's what Aang had said and Sokka wasn't a flying bison specialist but he trusted his friend's words.
Having nothing better to do and by now the relationship between Zabuza and him had developed into a good friendship. Sokka was planning to invite a new member to the Multiversal Group Chat.
[Inviting new Chat Group Member]
[Demonic Dragon has joined the Group Chat]
A/N: Katara and Kiwi have grown closer to each other. Sokka doesn't mind, as to him, a familiar is next to useless. An Exp stealer, even. Also cute pets have their places, but that is not a warzone.
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