Kain returned back to barracks for a good night of sleep. If he was going to be subjected to a day's worth of training, he might as well be well rested.
Waking up, he got his breakfast at the barracks, which was just more fish. Turns out, practically all meals here included at least some fish. After all, in the freezing cold of the north, there were no crops nor animals except for what could be found underwater.
The only non-sea food based dishes here were from the earth kingdom merchant ships, meaning that it was terribly overpriced.
Finishing his meal, Kain stood up and got his gear. He grabbed his bottle of waters, daggers and wore his scarf and gloves. He walked outside and felt the cool wind breezing across his face.
The wind was cold, but it was not stinging. Instead it was relaxing, a calm serenity breezing through the city. Today was a beautiful day.
He walked across the city. He already knew about the practice grounds. It was where he was practicing steambending after all. All of the practice grounds were located right next to the barracks, for the sake of the soldier's convenience.
He saw many people standing near the grounds, watching waterbenders fight each other relentlessly. There were even lines forming around the practice grounds, as waterbenders waited around for their turn to spar.
Waterbending spars worked around a yield based system. Two waterbenders would fight until one of them yielded or was knocked unconscious.
Due to waterbending's healing capabilities, getting a few injuries were nothing, especially in a peace in the middle of the war like this. Even he knew a few healing techniques, though he was far from an actual healer. He promised himself to work on healing after he finished learning steambending.
However, in some situations healing would not work. As such, deaths from intense sparring while uncommon, still had happened across history. All of this was information he had gathered by asking soldiers watching the spars.
Eventually, he ended up at practice ground five. But unlike all of the other grounds, this one was almost empty. There were only two soldiers, talking to each other while sitting near the grounds.
He approached them and asked, "Hi there. I couldn't help but notice that this practice ground is empty. Could you tell me why?"
The two soldiers looked at him before the one on the right spoke up, "No one's using this ground because the old man's here. He's been gatekeeping this one ground for the last month."
Kain asked again, wanting to get as much information as possible from the soldiers, "The old man?"
The soldiers looked a bit surprised as the one on the left answered, "Yeah, master Manar. he's currently training in the grounds. A few people have come to challenge him, but he's beaten all of them black and blue. he's absolutely relentless."
Kain digested this information as he started walking towards the grounds. As he got closer, he could barely just manage to recognize a figure practicing waterbending in the grounds. Practice ground five was one of the bigger practice grounds. It was multiple times bigger than the other ones he had already seen.
As he got closer, the two soldiers behind him turned their head to look at him walking towards the grounds surprised. They called over some of their friends, "Hey, someone's about to challenge Manar and they're about to get demolished."
A few soldiers came over, curiously watching Kain approach Manar. As Kain got closer to the Master, the latter shouted at him, "You, are you here to challenge me?"
Before Kain could respond, Manar dropped the water he had been bending and changed into a fighting stance, "Very well then let's fight."
Kain was caught by surprise as the Master shot out multiple droplets of water that turned into icicles as it approached him. He rolled out of the way, just barely dodging the icicles as they impaled the ground next to him.
'Is this old bastard insane?' He thought as he rushed towards Manar, 'His waterbending range is far bigger than mine. I have to close the distance.'
He entered the 20 meter range, with the old man shouting at him, "Remember, always be prepared for a fight. A fight does not wait for you to prepare, it comes as sudden as the wind."
Manar had already readied a new attack, with icicles shredding through the air in every direction. Seeing no way to dodge the icicles, he conjured a bunch of water from the hole to his right. The water formed into an icy shield in front of him, blocking the icicles.
He bent some more water out of the pool, before he escaped the safety of his shield. He located Manar looking bored, sitting down and playing with a sphere of water in his hand, spinning it on one finger.
He threw the bent water at Manar, in the form of hundreds of tiny shrapnel shots. Manar snorted, throwing the sphere of water at the shrapnel. The sphere grew into a thin ice wall, as it caught all of the shrapnel.
Kain immediately created a water tentacle and curved it behind the wall at full force. But before the tentacle could hit, he lost control of it as the Master bent the tentacle backwards to instead hit his leg.
Kain winced in pain as he felt his leg getting slashed, as he barely managed to to turn the water into ice before it could cut straight through. But while he was freezing the water, Manar wasn't sitting around doing nothing.
Manar shot out multiple blades of water at him, which he barely managed to dodge by ducking under them. Before he could retaliate however, Manar had already created a ring of water that curved around his body and contracted, trapping him.
'What the hell, how is he so fast?' Panicking, Kain controlled the water away from him, turning it into a large ice spear and shooting it at where Manar should have been standing. But while he had been preoccupied trying to take control of the ring of water, Manar had already relocated near a pool of water.
Manar raised his hands as a massive wave of water shot out of the pool and encased Kain in a bubble of water. In this state, he couldn't see where Manar was at all.
So, Kain burst the bubble, launching daggers of ice in every direction. As soon as he was out of the bubble, he looked around, trying to find Manar again but was unable to. He had a bad feeling and looked up, seeing Manar flying above him with a jet of water as support, all of his ice daggers shattered by him.
Suddenly, Manar stopped levitating as the jet of water turned and shot towards him at full speed. Kain saw an opportunity, seeing the old man undefended, so he shot out as many icicles at him as possible.
Manar undeterred, increased his speed even more and collided with the icicles, the water bursting out in all directions. Kain's vision was covered by the water, so he prepared an attack for when Manar reappeared.
But suddenly, a fist burst out of the water, catching Kain completely off guard as it hit his cheek, sending him flying a few feet back.
Manar appeared from the water, completely unharmed as an armor of water covered his body, blocking all of the icicles that Kain had sent.
The armor fell to the ground, and Manar stared at Kain, as he got back up wiping some blood off his cheek.
Manar grinned, "You're good at waterbending but you lack experience. Let's see if I can teach you anything."
As this moment, Kain thought, 'I'm fucked.'