“Aaaah!
Why is it so boring?”
In a vast swamp forest, a young boy sat on the branch of a large tree and gazed up at the canopy where vines intertwined.
The sky was completely hidden, with only patches of mottled sunlight filtering through.
This was far from enough for the boy.
He wanted to see a full view of the blue sky and white clouds.
The boy waved his hand, signaling the nearest vines to retreat.
To his satisfaction, the vines pulled back as if obeying his will.
“Sigh, I can only control vines this close.
When will I be like Father, making nearly every vine in the forest obey him?”
The boy let out a sigh, “This tree is still too short compared to the others.
Tomorrow, I’ll find a taller one.”
He waved his hand again, and a vine drew near.
Swinging back and forth between the vines like an ape, he slowly made his way toward the ground.
Since this was a swamp forest, the ground was covered in mud and water.
As the boy landed, the shallow water parted from the center outward and revealed the mud beneath.
The mud then visibly lost its moisture and turned into hard earth.
Only then did the boy step off the vine and onto solid ground.
He usually walked through the forest like this, practicing the Water Control Divine Art even in his daily activities to master it more quickly.
Before he had walked far, he heard someone calling him from behind.
“Kid Koda, kid Koda!
Come get some good food.
A merchant caravan got lost and wandered into the swamp just now.
A Shou and I escorted them out.
The caravan gave us some poultry and grain, which is quite rare.
If you don’t hurry, A Shou will eat it all by himself.
Get on the boat, quick!”
“Okay, wait for me!
If he dares to eat it all, I’ll let Lao Huatou eat him.
He’s already got such a big belly, yet he keeps eating—isn’t he afraid of getting fat?”
The boy, Koda, circled his hands and pushed forward.
A waterway ahead completely froze over and connected all the way to the bow of the boat.
With a light hop, he jumped onto the ice and slid all the way to the bow using his momentum.
He then used his power again to turn the boat around.
“Let’s go, A Fu!
Faster, before that glutton A Shou eats everything,” Koda urged quickly.
“I know.
I warned him before I came to find you.
He’ll probably leave some for you…
maybe…”
Thinking of A Shou’s character, even A Fu was not sure if his warning had worked.
A Fu’s hands began to circle rapidly.
After about five seconds, the boat began to accelerate.
It felt like riding a yacht from his past life, except this was a wooden boat.
That’s right.
Koda was not from this world.
He had been in this world for about five years, and his memories had only slowly returned when he was four.
After they returned, he was speechless—he had actually drowned in his past life!
One day on his way home from the supermarket, he encountered two children playing by a bridge.
Not long after crossing, he heard a splash.
One of the children had fallen in.
Without a second thought, Koda dropped his plastic bags and jumped in.
In the end, the child was saved, but he drowned.
Sigh…
“That might be the only good deed I ever did in that life.
Being a hero right before dying—what a way to go.”
“Fortunately, I didn’t have parents in my past life.
For as long as I can remember, I lived in an orphanage.
Later, I worked to support myself.”
He sat cross-legged on the boat and thought somewhat helplessly.
He never expected to transmigrate, especially in such a way.
Wasn’t it a bit embarrassing for his fellow transmigrator predecessors?
“My name in the past life was Chao Teng, and now it’s Koda.
Maybe it’s fate.”
Thinking this made him feel a bit better.
“Father said he found me at the edge of the forest, near traces of refugees.
If he had found me any later, I might not have made it.
But during my infancy, what to eat became a problem.
In the end, they came up with a way to use the Water Control Divine Art to mix in nutrients, which kept me alive.
Thinking back, it must have been very hard for them.”
Images surfaced in his mind of several grown men fussing over him, an infant, all day long.
They must have been frantic and overwhelmed.
The scene was a bit funny.
Koda felt no shame thinking about this.
Instead, a faint smile touched his lips.
Because he had never experienced such a warm atmosphere in his past life.
“These men give in to my every whim, even Lao Huatou.” He still couldn’t figure out exactly what kind of animal Lao Huatou was—the body of a crocodile with the face of a catfish.
“When I was little and hadn’t recovered my memories, I often pulled on Lao Huatou’s whiskers and rode him all over the forest.
Even so, Lao Huatou never got angry.
I have to say, this animal’s intelligence is truly high.
That must be why Father and the others didn’t stop him from being with me.
Lao Huatou has been with Father and the others for over ten years, so does that make him my uncle’s generation?
Haha!”
…
Looking at the back of A Fu as he used his powers, Koda was filled with emotion.
“Back in the orphanage in my past life, ‘Mama’ would show us cartoons every week.
Those were rare moments of happiness.
Among them, Avatar was the one I didn’t understand.
After I grew up, I watched it again for nostalgia, and I didn’t expect it to hide so many philosophies.
As a child, I saw the story.
As an adult, I saw the emotions and schemes.
Now I can’t help but wonder, was this really for kids?”
“What I least expected was that I would transmigrate into it and become a member of the Water Tribe—specifically, the Swamp Faction.”
In truth, there were four great nations in this world, but only Firebending and Earthbending powers had formed true countries.
Waterbending and Air Nomads were more like nomadic peoples.
Compared to the Air Nomads, the Waterbenders were much better off, with tribes at both the South and North Poles forming significant powers.
These powers had clan hierarchies and complex internal relations.
Meanwhile, the Air Nomads lived only within the South and North Qihe Temples, with status determined by age.
Koda once again organized the power dynamics of this world in his mind, emphasizing that he must never forget them.
He was a member of the Water Tribe and was proud of it.
There was one more thing that surprised him even more: He actually had the talent to practice the Water Control Divine Art!
This made him more certain that someone in his ancestry had practiced it.
However, the ones who raised him were not his original family, but this group of men who didn’t seem reliable at all.
Thinking of that group of men, they were truly interesting.
A Shou wasn’t thin at all.
Instead, he had a big belly.
He liked to make decorations out of plants to wear on his body, always looking silly with a leaf hat on his head and thinking about nothing but eating all day long.
A Fu, on the other hand, wasn’t fat at all—he was as thin as a matchstick.
In the forest tribe, he and A Shou were the best of friends and always hunted together.
This time, they had obtained outside food while out hunting.
Koda still had some vague impressions of this tribe from his memory.
It seemed like when the Avatar was flying in the sky, he encountered a tornado and was sucked down, and then something happened…
Koda couldn’t remember clearly.
He only had a general memory of the plot, and it was from Aang’s perspective.
Now, from the perspective of a bystander, it was naturally a different story.
“Hey, kid Koda!
What are you thinking about so intently?”
Eh?
Koda was startled.
Pulled out of his memories, he hadn’t quite regained his senses.
Hearing A Fu’s question, he naturally couldn’t answer truthfully.
“A Fu, what do you think the outside world is like?
I’ve grown up here since I was little and don’t know what it’s like out there.
I’m quite curious.”
Koda had heard from Father that they were driven here by the Fire Nation Army after their original lands were invaded.
They had only put up a symbolic resistance, and upon realizing they couldn’t win, they simply relocated.
But whenever he heard about this from other tribesmen, everyone’s expression was different, though they all shared a sense of sorrow.
Asking further wouldn’t yield any answers, so he simply stopped asking.
He would surely find out the truth in the future.
They had lived here for decades.
No one knew what the outside world had become.
But Koda knew that the Fire Nation Army’s war of unification and conquest had lasted for a hundred years and had not ended to this day.