"Okay, so what do I need to do?" I asked without wasting time posing who-are-you, what-are-you questions I felt I won't get the answer for.
"Consume the leaf on the left from your side." The childlike voice commanded.
"You have only two, can you manage with only one?" I asked as I plucked the leaf anyway and started chewing it. It tasted like Darjeeling Tea, with a little hint of mango sprinkled in. I'm positive that no mango tree leaf tasted like this. I'm also sure that no one eats mango leaves raw.
"I'll have to manage." The voice answered with a strained voice. "But you could have amputated me a bit gently!"
"Yeah, it was rude of me. Now that I think of it along with your description of the act..." I suddenly felt a burning sensation on the ring finger of my left hand as if something bore through my skin at the tip and travelled up my arm. I imagined a leech wiggling inside my blood vessels, nesting itself right below the inner part of my elbow.
"Your grandmother has given you an interesting training. Even though she picked up the basics just by looking at her husband, she gave her own touch to chitram that's totally different from the traditional methods. Now that I have access to your memories I can see where your rich imagination comes from. Imagination always starts small, just like I am right now, but when you pile up enough of them, connect them together, you will find out something majestic born out of them. I will thus grant you a trait, which gets applied to all your skills. It is nothing but the realisation of your true nature, something that had been built overtime and now being expressed like a newly born sapling. I can only grow through you, so get stronger. I don't know about others, but since we are bound together, I will always be on your side. Just as you'll protect me, I will also do so. You can take a look at your auxiliary status later. Using this you can contact me whenever you want. Make sure I'm not lonely, okay? You'll also be able to see others' windows. Let me also give you a tip. Every new thing that you learn is realised as a skill. And the more you practice the more it gets stronger. So never stop learning. Keep trying things out. Our time is almost up, Kalpa is now getting suspicious. Thanks for being patient with me and not interrupting. Every ten levels you advance, we can meet for your extra class advancement. So get stronger fast and don't leave me waiting for long." The child like voice finally stopped. I realised that her sentences were really short and awkward, as if it's been only a few days since she started talking. But the emotions felt from them were different. One moment she talked like a mature woman, while also being innocent and childish at the end. I felt an enormous amount of trust flowing between us. I'll use the status to contact her after everything gets finished. This synchronisation ritual let's me connect with tree beings it seems. When she used the name Kalpa, and that she's getting suspicious, I feel like this young sapling had been hacking into the whole network to get access to my number, aiming to talk with me before everyone. My trait and status inherited from her are auxiliary, so now I'll be able to meet the mobile tower who'll grant me my main status. Hopefully she doesn't start asking questions about where I was till now instead of arriving at her place as soon as I touched the Linga. I touched the only other leaf of this young plant gently and with care and said goodbye as my vision shifted leaving me floating in the dark cosmos, with luminous blue clouds floating above and golden stars creating patterns in the sky. My feet touched an invisible ground which was like a mirror image of everything that was going on above.
"Did you get lost on your way? Turn around." I heard the voice of an old lady from behind. Turning around I was shocked to see a huge pillar that went up to the heavens. So high that it made me nauseous. How can something be so big? The pillar was a cylinder that ended as a sphere at the top. Six golden circles adorned the tube part of the pillar at regular intervals and seemed alive. They sometimes became elliptic, sometimes like a rounded star and again back to being a circle. It was breath-taking. It looked like the circles were present there from the very beginning and the tower grew by piercing through the center of the circles, connecting them. The sphere had a huge glowing eye reminiscent of the Shiva's third eye which once opened, can turn everything in front of it to ashes. I flinched as it looked down at me feeling the sensation of a thousand needles piercing my feet from below. The burning sensation I felt before with the sapling when I ate her leaf was nothing compared to this. My body felt like it was restructuring itself from my legs to the head. I tried to move my legs but found them held in place in a way that reminded me of one time when I stood on an acupuncture mat. I tried not to make any sound afraid it might also get transmitted back to the prayer hall where my actual body was. After the pain subsided, silence followed.
"Um, thank you for the pain I guess?" I tried to break the ice.
"I'm concentrating, can you be quiet for a while?" The massive tower retorted. Having such a massive being scold me left me feeling like an ant in front of a herd of elephants. My whole body just wanted to give up and stop functioning.
"You have been fooling around all your life, haven't you? I can't see even a single instance of learning a useful skill from all the memories I'm allowed to access. There is nothing to see at all. Why do parents even send their child here being as unprepared as this?" The voice complained.
I was furious inside, but couldn't even open my mouth in front of such a presence now that it was exuding such an ominous aura. The things I know are all useless? I wonder how much of my memories she's allowed to see. Either lots of things have been blocked from her view or her list of useful skills didn't coincide with what I had.
"I'll just give you a quick acquisition trait for now. Just, don't go to the front lines with your capabilities. You'll only waste the Sanjeevani Amrita for no reason. Try your best. You are a lot behind other people." The old mobile tower finally stopped ranting. The prickly feeling below my feet also disappeared, as I bent my leg to see the damage below. There were no wounds despite the sensations still ringing inside my brain. I refused to end it like this, steeling myself I looked up and decided to shout.
"In what sense am I behind the other students? Just because I don't conform to your ideals doesn't mean I'm useless."
"I'll see if you can come back here. We'll talk then." She simply dismissed me like the lesser beast I was.
The space around twisted as fluorescent light filled my eyes. I was back at the shrine with faces on both my sides. I jerked my hand away from the stone and returned with Saiyan back to my seat on the carpet. He had also come to check what was wrong with me.
"How long was I out?" I asked embarrassed at the set of events.
"Probably for over three minutes." he whispered clearly thinking about something else. The other people who had come up to help me also sat back. Most of them were seniors who kept whispering among themselves and stealing glances at us. I also met Roop's eyes who waved back at me. He gave a slight nod asking whether I was okay. He was quite expressive from behind his spectacles. He had a medium build with curly hair that reminded me of dry noodles. I blinked with a slight nod to relay that everything was fine.
"You could have taken a three minute instant noodle break in the mean time." I said referring to the advertisement of a noodle brand in my country that states one can cook and eat it within three minutes. It unfortunately failed to bring him a smile. That golden light was some kind of an ominous signal I think.
"You sure you don't wanna talk?" I asked being unable to suppress my curiosity.
"I want to, but can't. Not right now. Can you wait until things get sorted out a bit?" He said quietly. I saw him getting quite distressed over an unpredictable circumstance that was beyond our control. I wanted to be of help but I myself was in need of it the most.
"Can you tell me more about the mobile tower? She was so rude! She didn't need to outright tell me that I wasn't good enough..." I complained insincerely. "She told me that she would ask for forgiveness if I managed to meet her again. Do you know when can we do that?"
"After we reach level 100. It honestly will take years. Even for me." He answered my question seriously.
"Even for me..." I snorted after mimicking the way he said it. "Yeah, yeah, if Mr. I-have-been-training-since-I-was-born takes years to get there it might as well take as many lifetimes for me."
He rolled his eyes at my stupid joke and continued, "She is Kalpa Vriksha. The tree of wishes. Every mythology has a mention of the world tree. She is the one from our myths, born from the collaboration of Devatas and Asuras during the Great Churning of the Sea, Samudra Manthan."
I remembered the story of Samudra Manthan. Samudra means Sea and Manthan meant stirring or churning. It was a nasty business. The Devatas(Gods) and Asuras used and tricked each other coveting the treasures of the Earth and tried to monopolize the items as they came out one after another. They broke off the huge mountain Mandara, asked Vishnu, to transform twice, once as a tortoise to hold the huge Mountain in place half above the sea and again as a beautiful woman named Mohini to enchant the Asuras, distracting them while the Gods drank the elixir of life, Amrita by themselves. They even used Vasuki, the snake which coils around Lord Shiva's neck as a rope which went around the mountain to twist it to and fro, in the sea, like we churn butter from milk. And out came various treasures, deadly poison, goddesses, cows, the tree of life, four tusked elephants, apsaras(divine damsels), eight headed horses and a multitude of other artifacts. The Gods and Asuras were claiming each of them fairly until Amrita came out. The Asuras were deceived by Vishnu on the Devatas' request, who went on his way after the deed was done, while the Devatas and Asuras left at the scene duked it out. The Devatas who were clearly at an advantage with the power of Amrita emerged victorious and exiled the Asuras to Patala Loka, the world under our feet, made of seven dimensions which now imprisons different tribes of Asuras at different levels. It was a fascinating story that gives perspective to the right of victorious. The myths might have been different if it were the Devatas who had been deceived instead.
"So she's the tree from the myths, I thought she might look like a huge Banyan tree. The structure was not remotely close to something like a plant." I remembered the mobile tower like structure. Whoever gave her this nickname to bypass Maya had enough reason to do so to be honest. Status!! I totally forgot in the midst of everything. I can now see my abilities quantified in front of me.
"How do I see my status?" I asked Saiyan, "And yeah, what was all that pain for in my legs?"
"She needed to inject some of her sap inside you for the awakening and synchronisation process. After you consume the Sanjeevani Amrita in the Ashrama, you'll be able to see your status. I learnt about it from my cousin who's in tenth grade now." He answered patiently, even mentioning his sources. Something felt odd about this conversation though. It was like this exchange shouldn't have happened right now.
Oh, so that's why the little sapling wanted me to eat her leaf. There might be some sap inside the veins. Or maybe some of it got on my finger when I plucked it.
"I still need to wait? I thought I could see it if a said 'Open Status' or something." I flinched as a black screen with green border and letters appeared in front of me. It totally looked like those hacking interfaces in movies.
Saiyan probably sensed the surprise in my emotions and took a glance.
"Only a few rows left. You also need to go meet the warden. Let me know if you need something. Sometimes the views of an outsider can give a simpler solution to the problem." I said trying to change the topic by focusing the conversation on him. He smiled finally, and started spectating the remaining students who went one by one to the shrine. "You're not an outsider anymore." He assured me and became quiet.
This time I viewed my hack mode status screen discreetly.
_________________________________________
STATUS
Name: Dhruva.
Species: Human
Age: 12
Trait: Fabrication (Auxiliary)
Class: Guardian of [] (Auxiliary)
Level: 0
HP: 300
Attack: 14
Defense: 4
Crit chance: 0.02
Crit damage: 0.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
STATS(Auxiliary)
Strength: 8
Stamina: 5
Agility: 6
Dexterity: 26
Intelligence: 17
------------------------------------------------
Shakti(divine energy): 0
Kundalini(internal energy): 0
Prana(life energy): 10
------------------------------------------------
Curse resistance: 0
Enchantment resistance: 0
Poison resistance: 0
Ailment resistance: 4
Mental resistance: 2
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SKILLS(Auxiliary)
Passives:
Reasoning: LvL 2
Intuition: LvL 2
Visualization: LvL 3
Space Comprehension: LvL 1
Chitram: LvL 5
Chanting: LvL 2
Concentration: LvL 3
Mental Fortitude: LvL 1
Active:
Field of protection: LvL 1 (New!!)
One with nature: LvL 1 (New!!)
Recovery: LvL 1 (New!!)
Wood Flesh: LvL 1 (New!!)
Bonk: LvL 1(New!!)
_______________________________________________
The amount of zeroes left me unsettled. If it was my report card I would have been disowned by now. It was also confirmed that the little sapling had definitely searched through my memories. The hacking interface from the movies was a reference to what it had done during the synchronisation ritual. While the Bonk meme was definitely one of my favourites. The doggie with a baseball bat chasing a scaly lizard and a monkey never failed to make me chuckle. Chitram and Chanting being Passive skills came as a surprise. That means there will be skills that will get benefitted if I have a Chitram or Chanting passive. My first priority would be to find and learn about those. Considering all the active skills I have are new, I understood why Kalpa was so frustrated with me. What can I do? I only trained my passives. It might also be possible that Kalpa can't access our passive skills. Or that she didn't care to take a look at it.
There was also a chat button at the top right of my status window. Looking at it and having the urge to touch it in the air, I somehow kept myself restrained. It would look suspicious if I suddenly started pressing the air out of nowhere from an outside perspective.
But the status window seemed to have understood my intentions and opened a pop up to the right of the window.
"Thanks for the new skills little sapling. It says I'm the guardian of an unnamed entity. Do you really not have one?" I imitated the same motion with my tongue keeping my mouth shut, as if I was really saying these words but without any sound. It was like a monologue that turned into letters as soon as I thought about them.
Send.
"Give me one..." The little sapling replied back instantly. Was it happy I remembered it this soon?
I thought about what would be a nice name for a little plant. For mango products, I really loved mango panna which was a sour and refreshing drink made from unripe green mangoes.
"How about Panna?" I said wondering whether she would like it.
"Panna. Like emerald right? It's a cute name, thanks!!!" She replied back excitedly.
I didn't correct her. Emerald also works fine, I thought, remembering her beautiful green leaf. I gave her a beautiful name unknowingly. She might already know why I gave her this name anyway, by reading my memories.
"So Panna, it seems you really like movies. I'll make sure to watch more when I go back home during vacations." I suggested, "How does it happen actually? Can you share my vision or just see glimpses from my memories?"
"Actually I can do both. But for the first one I'll need your permission. Can you allow me when you're watching one?" She texted back.
"If it makes you happy, I'll give you permission anytime."
