"That's it, Toph! Walk like you mean it!" I cheered alongside the maids in the baby room as Toph slowly stood up from seating, her balance imperfect as she tried to take a step forward.
It's been over five months since I was officially instituted as Toph's personal butler, about a month after Toph's first birthday, and things are finally looking up! I passed the tests given to me, as you could read from this text, and I finally was free from the hell that was butler training—admittedly my spare time was still nonexistent.
But I was getting paid! Twelve silver coins a month—that's more than what normal poor people make in this Kingdom! So I'm currently earning an annual salary of one gold coin and forty-four silver coins; that means that I'm in the middle class in terms of salary standings.
To put things into perspective, a meal costs around 5~10 copper coins. A hundred copper coins convert into one single silver coin. Another hundred silver coins convert into gold coins.
In layman's terms... I was freaking rich! I was looking at my own decently sized, fully furnished house in the middle levels in a decade, give or take! More importantly, the money will be useful to buy the supplies needed to live in the Air Temples for a long time if I save up right.
The Lord also promised a 5% increase in salary yearly if my performance in protecting and nurturing Toph was satisfactory. The Beifong family is truly generous. Fire Lord Ozai? Fire Nation? Who's that? Clearly, money was the talking force in the world!
"Reeeeeeeeeen~."
Toph slurred as she struggled to take a step forward, deciding to sit down on the spot instead as she looked up into the ceiling with her milky-white eyes. Snapping out of my delusions, I quickly moved to her location and gently picked her up.
I genuinely feared for my life when Toph's first word was the front of my name. Seriously. Cold sweat was pouring from my back as the two overprotective parents stared me down. Hey, it's not my fault that your child speaks my name first; you guys don't even see her.
Don't get me wrong, the Beifongs love their child to death. But they were busy people. Lord Beifong spends 50% of the day out and about and another 40% in his office managing his business. Meanwhile, Madam Beifong—Lady Beifong was strictly reserved for Toph in the future—was working diligently, attending to the countless visitors that came to the Beifong estate.
Of course, they do try their best to see their baby girl, but most of the time, I was by Toph's side, so it was no wonder that I was the first person whose name was uttered by the baby.
With Toph secured in my arms, I hummed as I walked around the room, trying my best to entertain her with my voice and touch. She'd get cranky if left alone for a long time, and her crying means more ammunition for the… unwelcoming co-workers of mine.
Ugh—just thinking about them is making my eye twitch.
Thankfully, most of the staff working for the Beifong family were nice. They minded their own business, acted professionally during work hours, and ignored my existence when I was in the room. That was dandy and up my alley.
However, there was a faction of Beifong staff that hated my guts. Mostly due to my racial appearance. Black hair, golden eyes, distinct facial features, smaller build, etc. As much as I love my face, it is causing a whole lot of trouble during my off-work time.
(Yes, Toph, I am a narcissist when it comes to my looks; don't look at me like that.)
Missing clothes, misplaced belongings, ruined bedsheets, rude jeers. The sort that you see in a drama. Adults bullying children at its finest, I'd say. While it doesn't affect work in the slightest, I presume that it was to avoid any drastic measures from management; a problem was still that I had to solve.
Getting on my nerves a bit, this one. Eh, I'll figure it out when I have the time. Who knows, maybe they'd get bored or something.
But what I do have time to do, though, is Fire Bending!
As I'm writing this excerpt, it is currently September 4th at two in the morning in a secluded part of the west garden near where the servant quarters were, I finally did it.
I punched a stream of fire for five consecutive seconds!
It was only a puff of fire, about the intensity of a candle at best, but still! Progress is made, people! And after managing it for the first time, I could confidently say that it was combat ready.
Good news, I can now punch fire consistently.
Bad news, I can only Fire Bend so long before I run out of juice. At my current rate: 15 seconds of continuous fire streams before I drop to the ground, completely out of Chi.
Chi deprivation is not a nice thing to experience; imagine muscle cramps but in your nervous system. I had to bite down on my boots to keep myself from screaming in pain for a couple of hours.
That leads us to the crux of the matter. I had no idea if my Chi reserves would grow; I didn't have a guide to go off.
The best-case scenario in this situation was if Chi grows as the user grows older; most old people had massive Chi pools, or that Chi grows as the user uses more of it, like a muscle.
Worst-case scenario was if Chi didn't grow naturally and was fixed at birth, as in only the chosen ones would have Chi reserves of the Avatar, while the mortal men watch in vain with their mediocre talent. That'd be a big problem if it were such a case.
Well, only time will tell. But to keep myself ahead of the grove, I'll treat the worst-case scenario as my go-to matrix for now.
Now, the question stands. How do I minimize the usage of my horrible Chi reserves while maximizing combat prowess? I'll have to think about this carefully; the wrong decision would screw over my plans of retiring safely by half a decade.
What a headache, why couldn't I have some kind of "Gamer System" or "Golden Finger" that Zero's memories often show? That'd make things so much easier for me.
Oh well, no time like the present to brainstorm.
… What if I took some inspiration from Zero's memories—
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