As our crowd of boys, which I realised was an amalgamation of students from about three different Gurukuls, got heated because of the sudden appearance of gracefully dressed young maidens of our age, I found myself guilty of stealing glances at some of the cutest students among the new comers.

Anik started explaining that three Gurukuls were allocated for the boys and girls each. The seventh gurukul was for students who were born with special powerful traits and needed more attention than others.

A few older women also arrived in tandem with the maidens, probably their wardens, who sent them to a huge building made of baked mud bricks and straw for the roof, with only a few commands, while imitating an impenetrable barrier serving as a boundary between the two areas.

"Don't worry," Anik consoled Dweep who had a slight look of disappointment on his face. "We'll be having lessons together."

"Don't project your feelings on me, bro." Dweep retorted, a bit exasperated. We had a little laugh at his defense and went to the building allocated for us. Even though we spent a whole day being awake back at the dimension where I was born, I felt not a single hint of exhaustion right now.

"Do you now know why so many students do well from our school?" Anik acted smug, "By the time you sit for the all-country examinations, you will be more than forty years old. So your worries about 'normal' studies should take a back seat for now. By now you should already know what kind of role you'll be playing in our team of four. I would recommend taking lessons from the current sage of Sushruta's skill tree. Once we get our status windows activated I can give better advices."

"Healing is a risky business." Saiyan said from the side relaxing on the yoga mat like mattress, placed on the floor. The inside of the building allocated for us was so other-worldly spacious that it gave me a weird sense of discomfort. Some magic was surely at work here, reminding me of a joke for the houses in animations for kids. There is an infamous one that depicted a struggle between cats and cockroaches who lived in a house with a seemingly unending staircase, while the house looked like a simple two storied building from the outside. Each corridor here had thrice the amount of rooms when compared to our Bhavana. But it only had basic necessities. Sheep wool yoga mats instead of beds and, that's all. There was nothing else inside the room to our horror. Do we not need other sets of clothes? They probably want us to live like the ascetics in jungles, who give up on all materialistic thoughts for focusing on gaining enlightenment.

"Why do you say that?" I asked, genuinely curious why he would tag a noble deed as risky.

"You need to give up something inorder to heal the other person. That something when depleted, automatically incapacitates your bodily functions which you wouldn't want during a prolonged fight. It takes quite a long time to regenerate. I'm sure you'll find something just for you, that suits who you are."

"Is Saiyan here?" a middle aged guy with a clean shave and impressive back brushed hair suddenly arrived at our door.

Saiyan sprang up from his mat and followed the person somewhere.

"Let's follow." Anik said and tiptoed outside with us at his heels. From one section of the balcony, we could see the huge Banyan tree at the middle of this whole campus. I also got curious wondering where all the students from other standards were.

"The Ashrama consists of a multitude of small villages like this, spread around at the foot hills of the Himalayas. Your seniors are in other campuses away from here." Panna suddenly communicated with me inside my head like we did in that mango grove.

"We can now talk like this here?" I was surprised as I had thought that we could telepathically communicate only in the space where she was. That meant that she's buried somewhere in this Satya Marta.

"Yeah it seems like that. Do you know?" she continued excitedly, "Today I grew my third ever leaf!!"

"Congrats!!" I felt genuine happiness emanating from her. It was contagious. "You've worked hard, rest for now and take care..."

We kept observing as seven students, four girls and three boys, arrived at the Banyan tree accompanied with their own wardens. Somewhere in the path, Saiyan's companion had changed to Mr. Baagh instead of the guy who came to fetch him. The wardens held out their right hand to the side, making a forty five degree angle between their hand and ribs, while their thumb and index finger imitated a circle, completed by their tips joined together. Their left hand went up, making motions as if they were drawing something on an invisible canvas floating somewhere within arm's reach in front of them. Silver white colors poured out from their ring fingers as if they were 3D printing directly into the air. The white symbols written by them joined together to create a beautiful picture, giving me an impression of a fence surrounding a comfortable and safe home. It was so fascinating and out of this world that something felt awakening deep inside me. I needed to try that out.

"What was that? Do they also teach those?" I asked Anik, genuinely curious.

"Bro are you serious? Why would you learn Charm Creation when you can use Hymns for sorcery? It might be flexible, but not practical in real life battles. It is just for little tricks, not actually usable where it matters." he shook his head like it was a bad idea to even ask him this question. "Even if you want to learn it, you can't actually. Not for four more years probably. As far as I know Charm Creation requires advanced knowledge of how Kundalini flows within our body. I don't know the specifics though. You can try asking around if you want. I just don't want you to waste time focusing on something you can't learn right now."

It was understandable from his point of view, I guess. What I have understood from his conversations till now was that he breathed and lived for this place. Whatever was required for him to stay here, he had learnt in the outside dimension. His body was there, but his mind had always been wandering in a day dream based on some interpretation of this place, that he created from basic descriptions about the Ashrama.

The barrier disappeared as the people who had once vanished, manifested again.  They broke into two groups and headed towards their respective dorms in opposite directions. We walked back to our rooms waiting for Saiyan to arrive. We waited until all of us were called to the grounds once again but there was still no sign of him anywhere. Did his special training already start?

We gathered in front of the huge Banyan tree which already had sages standing in front of it, adorning saffron clothing, following an imaginary horizontal straight line at the base of it. With a swift motion, they sat in a meditation pose with folded legs and hands on their knees, while gesturing us to do the same.

As we followed their example, the sage sitting at the middle of the line opened his eyes and started explaining.

"The difference between the place where you arrived in this Prithvi and Satya Marta is the presence of Shakti. While Maya is all encompassing, existing everywhere like air, Shakti inherently is a bit different. Devi Sati, brought forth Shakti into this world through her ultimate self sacrifice ushering peace and stability back to Prithvi long ago, finally ending a tumultuous era in the earlier period of our myths."

It was a tragic story. Devi Sati, being born to King Daksha, son of Brahma-The Creator God, was actually an incarnation of a Goddess who came down to Earth binding herself under only one condition, that she can never be insulted or humiliated in any way. Growing up, she grew infatuated with Lord Shiva and toiled hard to gain his affection, sacrificing all her materialistic needs. Lord Shiva, after a lot of tests finally decided to take her as a wife prompting Devi Sati to leave everything and come to Mount Kailasa, the abode of Lord Shiva. This angers King Daksha, who didn't like Shiva, and out of spite arranged a huge ritual where all kings, gods and goddesses were invited only except Lord Shiva. Devi Sati arrived alone at the ritual, demanding to know why her father had been so cruel. In answer, Daksha insulted both his daughter, which was a no-no, and his son-in-law, which was a bigger no-no infront of Devi Sati. Since her condition became void, being insulted by her own father, it was time for her to leave the World, which she did so in a fit of anger since her time together with Lord Shiva was cut short,  cursing everybody present at the Ritual to be killed by the hands of her husband. She gave up her mortal body in the sacrificial fire of the Ritual unable to even say goodbye to her husband one last time. This Goddess that came down to Earth was Goddess Adi Parashakti, the primordial force.

Lord Shiva unfortunately arrived late at the scene, found the dead body of his wife burning in the fire and started calling upon the incarnations of Destruction. All hell broke loose as people were slaughtered everywhere by the Goddesses summoned by Lord Shiva. He retrieved the body of his wife and started roaming the world in grief. Fearing the untimely destruction of the whole Brahmand, the universe, Lord Vishnu used his Sudarshan Chakra, a circular divine weapon, to cut up Devi Sati's body into 51 parts bringing Shiva back to his sense with the shock, deactivating his destructive form. These 51 parts of her body fell in various parts of the world creating an interconnected network of Shakti Rekhas, like ley lines, joining each of these Shakti Peeths, centers of power.

"You can feel Shakti and absorb enough of it only when you are sitting on one of the Shakti Rekhas. But like you know, Shakti, originating from the primordial Goddess is inherently a feminine force. While the young maidens will have an advantage in absorbing Shakti, I hope the boys won't get discouraged by seeing their peers developing faster than them. Take it slowly, coax it inside your body, let it do its thing. You can never win against it, and can only channel it to give it a proper outcome. Your first lesson will be finding out the hidden Rekhas in this village and learning how to absorb it slowly into your body."

As everybody got up in a hurry and started running around, I kept sitting for now. I have seen and read enough literature to understand the hidden meaning of tests like these. They often conclude to: It had been within you from the very beginning, or it had been where you were, you just weren't looking properly. Cliche things like these. Me and several others had probably found the answer and were still sitting where we were proudly.

"Look at these..." One of the sages suddenly opened their eyes and scanned us.

"Either you guys fell asleep, or you're thinking too much. I can guarantee you that none of the Rekhas pass through here. Start running." he calmly stated.

I sprang up on my feet and ran away embarrassed. I should have followed my roommates instead. Stemming from the previous thought, that it might be in a place least expected, I tried to visualise the campus from the above. The imaginary picture was surprisingly vivid, courtesy of my Visualisation passive probably. While the Bhavanas were more or less ' h ' shaped, the dorms here was only ' ---- ' shaped. Where does the girls' dorms lie? On the same line or a different one? I went to the left most part our our dorm building and looked straight ahead. Yeah, I could see the right end of their dorm directly in front of me. Things fell into place giving the same feeling you get while solving a Wordle. I ran to my room remembering how the yoga mats were placed on the floor, on the same horizontal line through the middle of the room. It was actually right in front of me from the very beginning. I also realised that the Sages were sitting on the line connecting the two dorms too. They probably didn't get up, thinking students might try sitting once in their spots. As I passed rooms on the way to mine and saw people already sitting on their mats, I realised I was correct in my hypothesis.

Just as I was going to enter my room, I heard Panna's voice in my mind.

P: "Don't just follow what others are doing. I'm sure you're proud that you found one of the answers by yourself but doing only this much won't be enough for both of us. Especially for you. There is a constant amount of Shakti flowing through a Rekha between two Peeths. Once the Shakti in it is depleted by getting absorbed by us, it again replenishes the divine energy in the next power center connected to it." she stopped me midway.

Me: "So the amount of Shakti you get to absorb is directly dependent on the number of people already sitting before you. Got it. So we have to find a new one?" I tried to summarise what she wanted to say.

P: "Technically yeah. But you'll need to trust me.With the little amount of my sap that you have inside your body, I can try finding a new line for you, which was probably hidden by Maya." Panna theorized.

Why would it be hidden by Maya? Do they deliberately want us to absorb less Shakti? How will we develop otherwise?

P: "They know that taking in more amount of Shakti with our bodies which doesn't have a chakra point yet, will cause harm to us instead. The sages are still sitting on the line to make sure that all the students get a balanced amount of it. Whenever they feel like someone might get overloaded, they suck up more Shakti and reduce the amount flowing through the Rekha." Panna explained the mechanism leaving me perplexed.

How much storage space does they have inside their bodies to be able to store a quantity, that will directly influence the amount flowing in the line?

P: "In terms of the status windows, their Shakti stat will lie somewhere over hundred. Every chakra point can hold twice the amount of Shakti than the previous one. Since there are seven chakra points... you can calculate it to be somewhere around 128."

"Do everybody with seven chakra points have that amount of stats?" I asked getting excited. This was just like browsing through the tutorial systems of a game where you have to read quite a bit to understand the underlying mechanisms of the power systems there.

P: "No, this is the maximum one can get. Most people don't have that much capacity even with seven Chakras. There might be seven of them but their efficiency to store Shakti varies from person to person. Not all your chakra points can hold Shakti with the same efficiency too. Some points do better, some relatively worse. So the best chakras need to be created last." she emphasized this part.

This was actually important information. I need to properly understand chakras before I can start creating them. I was afraid my overthinking mind will commit some irredeemable mistakes.

As if Panna sensed my worries, she consoled me, "What am I here for? Trust me, okay?"

I started feeling a tugging sensation in my left arm and followed it outside the dorms. I crossed the Bathroom stalls, the Dining Hall, a shooting range and a cow shed, finally reaching the shrubs in the outskirts of the clearing. The mountains were now a lot closer as they loomed above me like a huge Danava.

P: "If you have 51 centers with all of them connected to each other, how many lines will you get? 51 centers will all have fifty lines coming in, or going out of them. Do you think this huge place will only have one Rekha going through it? That huge Banyan tree is suspicious, I can feel the Maya getting bent around it. They have created the infrastructure in such a way that it increases efficiency in an organised manner. Students can meditate sitting right in their rooms while the sages can keep an eye on them. They pulled the closest Rekha using Maya and set it up like a line passing right through the front of the Banyan tree, joining the two dorms. Quite fascinating." she finally stopped her monologue.

As I reached the base of the twin waterfalls which had created a small pool underneath, appearing like it was afflicted by an eternal drizzly rain over it, I felt my left arm getting zapped with some kind of static.

I could feel the air vibrating infront of me, as if some kind of hydro electric plant was working incessantly below the waterfall. Isn't this quite cliche? Training under an ancient waterfall? I thought suppressing a smile. If people came for some sightseeing and found me meditating here, they'll surely tag me as a martial arts fan.

"Ah!" I felt Panna getting embarrassed. "A slight miscalculation on my part. It seems that the line lies within the mountain."