In the evening we have some important family dinner.
What they want to announce there, God only knows.
Although Takeshi concluded that it is unlikely to be something terrible.
If he pretended to be an idiot—like, full-on clueless—then sure, maybe Takeshi would've thought they were about to drop a surprise engagement on him.
But let's be real.
Even the densest kid would figure out pretty fast that no one in their right mind announces a betrothal to a five-year-old.
If they had found him a wife, the grownups would've kept it hush-hush, done the whole behind-the-scenes thing, and only introduced him to the bride when she was already picking out their kids' names.
Nope.
Whatever was happening tonight had nothing to do with Takeshi personally.
That is, unless this whole dramatic setup was just to announce school.
Which wouldn't be much of a revelation. Takeshi was almost six.
Around here, kids were herded into school at that age whether they liked it or not.
And Takeshi? Well, he'd go too… unless he was being sent to something fancier.
Maybe even the most elite school around. Wouldn't that be a trip.
He'd started to piece together the local tech—or what passed for tech.
It was like someone had tried to cosplay steampunk but got distracted halfway through and said, "Eh, magic will do." And hey, it kinda worked.
The entire system ran on ma-gic.
Not the vague, mysterious kind.
Literal fire mages.
Here's how it worked: a fire mage would light up a contraption in the basement. Boom—hot, roaring flame for ten or fifteen minutes.
That was enough to heat a ton of water, make a load of steam, and send it racing through pipes all over the house.
That steam powered stuff—kitchen tools, toilet flushes, maybe even the damn teapot.
Efficiency?
Ha.
Who cared?
If things broke down or slowed, just toss more fire at it.
Energy loss?
Not their problem.
Where did the fire even come from?
No one knew.
Fire mages didn't chug extra food or pass out from overuse.
They lived totally normal lives… just with built-in flamethrowers.
But Takeshi wasn't buying the hand-wavy logic.
As far as he could tell, the world followed basic physics.
So unless they had their own version of the first law of thermodynamics, this whole setup didn't make any sense.
Energy couldn't come from nothing.
So where was it coming from?
Why did mages get tired like they'd run a mile, not like they'd melted steel beams with their fingertips?
Questions like that kept popping up while he read.
And the books here?
Surprisingly solid.
Entertaining, sometimes even funny.
But when it came to science or philosophy?
Damn, they got serious.
Even when the titles sounded fluffy, the content was sharp—dry facts, clean logic, cold conclusions.
They even dipped into "eternal mysteries," but they didn't lose themselves in nonsense.
It was like someone handed Plato a lab coat.
Mathematics, physics, chemistry… they weren't formal subjects yet.
The names existed, sure, but the structure was missing.
Maybe some high-tier schools had them locked in, but Takeshi hadn't seen one yet.
Most of the teaching followed the "Master and Apprentice" method—old school, but weirdly effective.
It was a strange blend.
In one room, students were squatting around a wise old man absorbing ancient secrets.
In another, some poor kid was being bored to death by a teacher rambling while drawing stick figures on a board.
Still, compared to other nations, the Fire Nation had one hell of a literacy rate.
Earth and Water folk?
Not so much.
If Takeshi walked into town and said "multiplication," no one would chase him with pitchforks.
Try that in the wrong village elsewhere and who knows—you might get burned before they ask what it means.
Anyway, Takeshi had spent most of his pre-dinner hours trying to dump everything he knew onto paper.
Not going well.
Reading?
Easy.
But writing it all back out?
Felt like trying to freestyle a joke on command—even if you'd just read the funniest book in existence, your brain still went blank when it counted.
That's how it felt.
He'd sit there, staring at the wall, mentally screaming, Come on, brain! Give me something!
What he did manage to write looked like the jumbled wall of a detective show: notes here, symbols there, maybe a red string if he was feeling dramatic.
Should he actually go that far?
Pin threads on a board like some conspiracy theorist?
Probably not.
But the temptation was real.
He wanted to map out this world like a science project.
Red strings for steam-based tech, green ones for confirmed science like "the Earth is round." If he could get over his laziness, it'd be glorious.
But let's not kid ourselves—ending up in a new world didn't magically turn Takeshi into some ultra-disciplined overachiever.
He didn't spring out of bed at sunrise to train like a shonen protagonist.
Nope.
He rolled out around ten, blinked at the wall until noon, then tried to figure out life until he got bored and went back to doing nothing.
And right now? He was wasting time again.
All because he didn't want to go to that dinner.
God, how he hated those big, traditional family meals.
All the fake smiles.
The stiff greetings.
The awkward stares.
But hey, what had to be done had to be done.
So he stood up, clumsily stacked his half-baked papers, and shuffled out toward the hall of doom.
The "traditional" dining room was exactly what it sounded like—one shared table, one forced gathering, one soul-crushing experience.
Normally, everyone ate in their own corners of the estate.
But tonight was "special." Tonight, "big news" would be shared.
Yay.
Takeshi had only recently realized that the entire massive house didn't just belong to his immediate family.
Nope, it also housed his uncle, his uncle's wife, and their son.
They all lived in different wings like some noble sitcom cast.
He'd barely seen them. They didn't seem interested in him either. Which suited him just fine.
The room had only one entrance.
No escape routes.
Takeshi sighed deeply, then pushed open the doors, stepping inside like a prisoner walking into a courtroom.
Every head turned toward him.
Not in a warm, "look who's here!" way.
More like, "ugh, him again."
"You're late, Takeshi," came the cold voice of his uncle.
Ji.
Just Ji.
A name that sounded more like an abbreviation than a person. And get this—he even named his son Ji. Ji, son of Ji.
Mother fucker sounds like a SoundCloud rapper.
Takeshi nearly laughed out loud.
God, what was wrong with his brain?
"Apologies, Uncle," he said, bowing with just the right amount of tradition. "I got caught up in my reading."
This place had rules.
Bowing.
Gestures.
Fist-to-palm greetings.
Most people just faked it to be polite.
Even the palace apparently let some of it slide.
But still, skipping it entirely?
Bad idea.
Uncle Ji grimaced and waved him to his seat—the one closest to the door, naturally.
Whether that was an insult or just random placement, Takeshi didn't care.
He wasn't here for table politics.
Something told him the way things worked around here wouldn't matter for long.
At least they weren't eating with their hands.
Chopsticks were still in style, though spoons and forks made appearances.
Takeshi didn't mind. He knew how to use chopsticks.
He just wished they came with less ceremony.
Settling in, he grabbed his utensils and braced himself.
Alright.
Let's get this over with.
Let's hear what the hell this "big announcement" is.