“Ohhh… Mmmpf.”
Aditya came back to himself into the washroom. He almost yelled out loud, but he blocked his own mouth to stop it.
He felt dizzy. His head is spinning and his whole body is completely sore. He started puking uncontrollably into the toilet bowl.
He only stopped after all his guts are empty. After three minutes of constant puking, except for the bile nothing is coming out.
He then collapsed on the bathroom floor as he took deep breaths to calm himself down.
After another five minutes, he finally had time to check up on himself. His whole body is soaked in sweat and he looked like he was drenched, it almost felt like he sweat enough for a whole year.
Apart from that, he felt his shoulders and core go through a soul searing pain that he never experienced before. He felt like even a casual hand pat on his shoulder could make him collapse into the ground.
But the most pain is in his chest and the ankle in which the limbs of the bug had stabbed him. Even the ankle pain was bearable to say the least, the stab to his chest was unbearable.
He took off his shirt to check his chest, but there is nothing there. It is normal. As normal as it could be and there is not a sign of single wound or scrap much less a stab.
He heaved a sigh and even he was confused whether it is a sigh of relief or a sigh of exhaustion.
But soon his breathing stabilized. He flushed the toilet and cleaned himself up a bit before going to the room. Luckily his roommates are busy with something and didn’t notice his exhausted and sweaty look. He took his towel and toiletries before going to the shower.
Under the warm shower, he finally felt alive again.
He cleaned himself up and for a moment, he noticed that his muscles are different than before. He is not particularly muscular, but he is not completely without them either.
But his muscles are more defined. He could even see the abs showing out a bit. He thought for a moment and opened the interface and checked his attributes.
[ATTRIBUTES
STRENGTH: 11.5
DEXTERITY: 9
ENDURANCE: 9.5
INTELLIGENCE: 10
WISDOM: 10]
“Ram.”
Aditya tried to call him, but to his surprise he didn’t appear.
“Ram.”
“Ram.”
He tried to call him for a few more times, but there is no response. If he couldn’t see the interface in front of him, he really would have thought that everything that happened until now is a hallucination.
He looked at the screen one more time.
His strength attribute has grown by three points and his endurance has grown by half a point. He doesn’t know why the endurance has grown, but the one person or a thing that could answer him is not here.
So, he decided to just rest it for now.
Then he looked for one more thing. He went back to the main interface and checked the inventory. The one slot is finally rid of the AIP, but it is not exactly empty.
The almost two feet long metallic limb of bug is inside it. This is what he did when Ram hinted that if he is smart enough he would be able to kill more of them with this. So, he quickly thought and tried to throw it in the inventory which worked surprisingly.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
He clicked on it and the large limb appeared in his hands.
Its like a straight oversized elephant tusk, except the curvature is not that big, it is close to being a straight pike with a slight bend and he doesn’t even know how to use it with its shape. But that was not even his concern at the moment, as soon as he took out the black pus is coming out of the partially hollow limb and it stank like crazy.
He could only clean that all up and take the shower from the start.
He stayed in the bathroom for more than forty-five minutes. He put the limb back in the inventory and went back out.
He changed in to his shorts and finally collapsed on the bed.
The next day.
“Aditya.”
“Aditya.”
Aditya opened his eyes at the constant nudging and yelling of his name. He opened his eyes and he looked at Venkat who is fully dressed up ready for the college.
“Why are you dressed this early?”
Aditya asked while rubbing his eyes.
“Early? It is 8:15. Class starts in forty-five minutes.”
Aditya was dumbfounded. He slept earlier than anyone else in the room and woke up the latest. He hurriedly got out of the bed and ran into the bathroom to get ready. Luckily, everyone else is ready and they are only waiting for him.
He got ready and everyone went to the breakfast and luckily, they managed to make it in time for the class.
In the morning recess, Aditya and Venkat went to the Literature club room to see if they can finish the application submission.
As they arrived, Vikram is opening the clubroom. He welcomed them in and looked at the books in their hands.
“Oh, you two got the books. That is great.”
He took them and carefully placed them on the shelves and then took their applications.
“You are officially members of the Literature club. At least by the books. If you want, you can come here and participate in the group events every Friday. If you don’t want it, no one is going to force you, but once you come for an activity, you cannot drop it in the middle.”
After that they went back to their class and at lunch they went to the library to get the books. These are for the test of SAE club.
“I cannot believe that this is third day and I am already preparing for the test. I didn’t expect the college life to begin like this.” Aditya spoke with a sigh. His body is still hurting a lot, but he is trying his best to act normal.
Venkat just chuckled and went on to search for the books. They went back to the classes and waited till the evening.
But this time, they didn’t go away.
Aditya looked at the timer in the interface. It is showing a little more than two days in it. He couldn’t help but feel a little anxious.
He went to the SAE club’s shed that evening after the classes along with the Venkat.
There are a lot of people and some even got some snacks.
Three groups of people with each group having five people are standing at the platform where one senior stood with a box in his hands.
“He is the previous president of the club. He is currently in his final year of college. The rule in the club is that the final year students cannot be the presidents or the teamleaders in the club and can only be advisors.
When the president enters the final year, he will conduct tests along with his peers to his juniors to select the next president, next set of team leaders and a bunch of other positions.
Currently, the new sophomores are being tested tonight.”
As usual, Venkat gave some context so that Aditya would not be confused.
They watched the rest of the show silently. A person from each group went to the box and picked up a folded slip.
When they opened it, they had different expressions on their faces.
Some of the third years students, went to the next shed where the vehicles for the competition are parked and brought them out. Some pushed them out and some just drove them slowly.
The five vehicles which are two buggy like ones, one go-kart, one F1 knockoff and one Quad-bike.
The former president looked at the team members and said.
“Pick a number. Between 1,2 and 3.”
Each team picked a number and the former president looked through a notepad to as he explained the task for the groups.
The tasks are easy to understand, each vehicle has some flaws in them which are pre-arranged and within the certain time, each group has to fix the particular flaw they selected with this slip picking and the number selection.
For example, the steering mechanism of the F1 knock off has a problem and the team-1 has to correct that in the next hour using whatever methods possible. The team two has to rectify the problem with the gear box of the Quad Bike and the third team has to check the brakes of the go-cart.
As for why there are five vehicles out, it is for the next rounds. It turned out it really is a long night.
That evening, Aditya and Venkat stayed until 8:30 PM and only went back. They didn’t even have anything to eat for the dinner and had to make do with snacks. But they have so many exciting things to talk about.
“Who do you think is going get selected? I think that guy from team-3 has a good chance of becoming the Quad Bike team’s main member.”
“I think so too. But the girl from team 2 is great, I think she could be sent to any team. Her grasp over braking is good. Even though I don’t understand, by how proud the seniors looked, I can tell she is really good at that stuff.”
Looking at the two of them talking away, Suraj and Sanjay felt a bit left out.
“My guess is right. You are indeed a nerd, aren’t you?” Suraj asked as he looked at Aditya.
Aditya just scoffed and kept on munching his Oreos.
That night he was really excited and almost couldn’t sleep. He finally found the place he was looking for. He looked at the timer.
It is showing 1 day 20 hours and 40 minutes when he finally went to sleep. It is time for him think of the final steps of the preparation the next day.