His acquaintance with Kori was only a brief interlude in his academy life.
Aside from giving him soone new to talk to and spar with during bending practice, it did not seem to affect his daily routine very much.
At that mont, Kahn was quietly reading a book.
The ancient text was titled An Illustrated Guide to Rare Beasts, and it recorded all kinds of strange creatures from across the world in great detail.
It was worth ntioning that the original author of this book was actually an Avatar from a past generation.
Of course, only a fully realized Avatar would have the ability to travel the world and see so many rare beasts with his own eyes.
That particular Avatar had lived in a relatively peaceful era.
His greatest passion had been traveling across the Four Nations and recording everything he experienced.
Aside from An Illustrated Guide to Rare Beasts, his other works included Customs of the Four Nations, A Complete Guide to the World's Wonders, and The Avatar's Travels.
Those books clearly revealed his unrestrained love for traveling the world.
Unfortunately, the greatest flaw of this book was that everything recorded inside it was already two or three hundred years old.
As the saying went, ti changed everything.
After a century of brutal war and devastation, who knew what the world actually looked like now?
Even so, Kahn remained a fiercely loyal reader.
He deeply yearned for the wondrous world described by that Avatar and desperately wished to travel it himself one day.
But in this chaotic era, realizing that dream would probably be extrely difficult.
It had been nearly a hundred years since the Fire Nation officially declared war on the world.
What was truly astonishing was that throughout this long century, the Fire Nation had actually grown stronger with every battle.
During Iroh's tenure as a leading general, the Fire Nation had achieved repeated glorious victories.
Now, the Fire Nation's path toward complete victory was becoming increasingly clear.
If Iroh had successfully captured Ba Sing Se, the great capital of the Earth Kingdom, then the Fire Nation's unification of the world would have been only one step away.
Unfortunately, Iroh had ultimately failed.
After the unbearable pain of losing his only son, he ordered the entire army to retreat.
That massive withdrawal severely shook the once-unshakable morale of the Fire Nation army.
It also greatly boosted the confidence of the Earth Kingdom's resistance forces.
They seized the opportunity and successfully reclaid several lost territories.
On top of that, the recent internal struggle for the Fire Lord's throne had forced the Fire Nation to drastically pull back its front lines once again.
This gave the enemy resistance forces enough ti to rest and recover.
If things continued like this, who knew when true and lasting peace would ever arrive?
It was hard to say.
Ahem, he had strayed too far from the main topic.
Returning to the point, the reason Kahn was reading An Illustrated Guide to Rare Beasts this ti was naturally because of his grand dream of owning a powerful pet.
Ever since he first learned about legendary creatures like dragons and sky bison, Kahn had often fantasized about one day owning an incredible pet or flying mount.
Although his current small body did not yet possess the strength to subdue such creatures, it was still good to pick a target early.
Hmm, a giant shirshu with an extraordinary sense of sll.
It ran incredibly fast and could be ridden.
But it was honestly a little too ugly, so absolutely not.
A massive sea serpent that looked incredibly terrifying.
No, anything that could only live in the ocean was completely out of consideration.
This one actually looked rather cute.
But it had almost no combat ability, so it could only be a backup.
In short, combat power was secondary.
Appearance was absolutely paramount.
Of course, if there was a rare beast with both excellent looks and trendous combat power, that would be even better.
Just as Kahn was completely absorbed in choosing his future pet, Iroh suddenly walked in from outside.
"Uncle Iroh."
Seeing Iroh enter, Kahn imdiately put down the thick book.
He stood and greeted him politely.
Today's firebending lesson was about to begin.
Ever since Iroh officially stepped down from his military command, he had been incredibly idle every day.
His only real tasks were teaching Kahn firebending, drinking tea, and playing Pai Sho by himself.
It seed he had gradually adapted quite well to a peaceful retirent life.
"You're a little late today."
Kahn noted.
"Sothing unexpected delayed ."
But today, Iroh was completely different from usual.
He seed sowhat abnormal.
Normally, he was always smiling broadly and looked utterly carefree.
But right now, he was unusually quiet.
What exactly happened?
Kahn wondered to himself.
During this lesson, Iroh was not only unusually quiet, but also frequently distracted.
He seed to be thinking deeply about sothing.
Finally, Kahn could not help asking.
"Uncle Iroh, did sothing serious happen?"
"Hmm?"
"Oh, nothing at all."
Iroh quickly ca back to himself and gave a weak smile.
"I may have eaten sothing bad earlier."
"My stomach feels a little uncomfortable, hahaha."
Clearly, Iroh did not intend to tell him what had happened.
But that excuse was far too lazy and perfunctory, wasn't it?
Kahn pouted slightly.
If the old man did not want to tell him, then so be it.
But this feeling of being treated like an ignorant child was honestly rather unpleasant.
Let think.
What could have happened recently?
Sothing that could deeply trouble soone like Iroh had to be either a highly secretive matter within the palace or a major matter concerning the entire Fire Nation.
Or possibly both.
Did Fire Lord Ozai finally make a major move?
Thinking of this, Kahn began recalling the long list of unspeakable royal secrets Azula had secretly told him during their private conversations.
A sudden realization struck him.
Then Kahn abruptly asked a pointed question.
"Are we going back to war?"
Although he had personally known Iroh, Zuko, and Azula for quite so ti, he had t Ozai very few tis.
Even so, he had learned quite a bit about the new Fire Lord.
One major point was that Ozai was an incredibly aggressive, warlike, and ambitious man.
Absolute rule over the entire world was his ultimate ambition.
And now, after the brutal struggle for the throne, he had finally resolved most of the Fire Nation's internal conflicts by force.
So it was entirely predictable that he would impatiently choose to continue the global war.
Hearing Kahn say this so suddenly, Iroh looked at him with genuine surprise.
Kahn was completely right.
The global war was about to begin once again.
After learning the terrible news today, even though Iroh clearly knew he could not stop it, he had still personally gone to speak directly with Fire Lord Ozai.
The result, exactly as expected, was that Ozai did not care about his desperate dissuasion in the slightest.
The Fire Lord insisted on continuing the war.
Iroh sighed helplessly.
"Yes."
"The brief peace was truly far too short."
"By the way, how exactly did you know?"
"I guessed."
Kahn casually spread his hands.
He answered with the sa deliberate perfunctoriness.
Iroh was briefly stunned into silence.
Then he suddenly burst into loud, genuine laughter.
He heavily ruffled Kahn's dark hair, completely ignoring the boy's annoyed resistance.
"Hahahaha!"
"A very accurate guess."
"Not bad at all!"
Then he gently rubbed his stomach and spoke quite earnestly.
"But I truly did not lie about eating sothing bad."
"This morning, I really ran to the restroom three tis."
"My stomach still feels terrible right now."
"It tornted quite badly."
"Eww—who even wants to know that you ate sothing bad?"
Kahn imdiately moved far away from Iroh with a dramatic look of disgust.
"Hahahahaha!"
Looking at Kahn's exaggerated little expression, Iroh laughed heartily once again.
However, although Kahn did not say it directly, Iroh could probably guess the truth.
Azula had likely told the boy sothing in secret.
Only that dangerous little girl would be so bold.
After the lighthearted jokes ended, they finally returned to the serious topic.
Iroh beca noticeably more solemn.
This ti, he no longer treated Kahn entirely like an ignorant child.
He asked Kahn a heavy question.
"What do you think about war?"
Kahn thought deeply for a mont before answering.
"No one truly likes war."
"I also hope this world can beco peaceful as soon as possible."
After all, he was still waiting to grow up so he could freely travel the world and catch rare beasts.
Hearing Kahn's mature answer, Iroh nodded with deep satisfaction.
But then Kahn continued.
"So I hope the Fire Lord can successfully unify the world as quickly as possible this ti."
"This war has already lasted almost a hundred years."
"It's ti for it to end."
"Unify the world, huh…"
Iroh quietly repeated the heavy phrase.
He seed to sink into complicated thought.
Then he asked a profound question.
"Why must we invade the other nations by force?"
"Would it not be better to maintain global peace through the balance of the Four Nations, as it has been since ancient tis?"
Kahn gave the old man an extrely strange, skeptical look.
That did not sound like sothing the forr Crown Prince of the Fire Nation would say.
It also did not sound like sothing the forr Fire Nation general who had led armies to countless bloody victories would say.
Nor did it match the fearso reputation of the man feared by his enemies as the Dragon of the West.
Weren't you the one who used to love fighting the most?
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