The feeling of dimensional jump subsided just two seconds after I stepped into the portal. It was not grand or anything, only accompanying a sharp change in temperature and humidity. We were in a massive cave system underneath the earth. The ceiling of the cavern was dotted with protruding stalactites, adorning green and blue glowing moss with white flowers.
A stream flowed across, converting the landscape to a marsh. Something peeked at us for a second and again submerged back into the stream.
Well, that was a crocodile. Having seen them only in a zoo, and finding one out in the wild left me awestruck for a second. The banks of the stream were covered with algae, making me unsure whether it was still land or water. The whole space had the size of half a football field, with a tunnel entryway a little to the right on the opposite wall of the cave. The boundary had the crude shape of an egg, with us at the lower flat portion. A waterfall to our left gave birth to the stream, which emptied into a pool at the middle, looking like the yolk of the egg shaped cavern. The pool again created an interconnected network of distributaries that flowed out in different directions like the neurons of a brain. The space had a haunting yet picturesque beauty that I could not stop admiring.
"Is everybody here?" Vihaan, the muscular leader brought out a rectangular silver colored shield from his dimensional pocket and asked while counting the members. "Twelve. Okay."
The dead eyed Laksh finally had some shine in his eyes. Was he too bored in the outside world? He summoned his small dimensional eye shaped crack and started bringing out training equipment for us.
We had our own equipment but still accepted the offer.
"The Makara won't attack until we trespass into their territory, so get ready, both in terms of equipment and mentality taking your time slowly. We can speedrun the later sections when we are comfortable with the fighting styles of others. Get familiar with each other for now." Yashvi explained our next task with a relaxed tone.
The training equipment had a hard sleeveless iron armor for the upper body, which adapted to our body shape, sticking to our white prayer clothes. That was cool. Next was a plated waist Armor which technically looked like a small skirt. We attacked knee and shin guards that looked like the ones hockey players and footballers use, made out of the same metal as the torso Armor but with a cushioned base. Lastly, we put on silvery shoes which looked like insect appendages, protecting our bare feet.
It took only two minutes for the seniors to get ready, after which they helped us with ours.
Saiyan got a iron sword, Dweep a circular steel shield, Anik a wooden bow and iron arrows. The other team also got the same, when I saw Esha giving a thoughtful look wanting to choose a weapon from the pile that was once inside Laksh's dimensional pocket.
Hmm, daggers. Nope, I'm not gonna get that close. Sword? I will try it out after getting lessons from Saiyan. Same goes for Bow and Arrow. I wondered whether there were staves, that can be programmed with a few spells, able to be activated by anyone after feeding Kundalini. A spear and a javelin also lied there gaining my attention.
Spear also required skills to handle, while it gave a bit of space and distance from the enemy when compared to a sword. Javelins are aerodynamic in nature, and can be used for long range attacks. But I have never thrown one in my whole life. What if I impale someone from behind?? It will be so embarassing.
"Are you interested in Javelins?" Laksh walked up to stand beside me and asked.
"Interested, but never handled. High possibility of friendly fire." I answered his query.
"If you have never handled one, you won't have enough power to pierce through the training Armor. So don't worry, I'll try teaching you." Laksh said, his eyes sparkling.
"Aren't there staves or wands? Like for the sorcerers in stories?" I asked.
"There are actually. But useful only after you have enough Kundalini. Try that after you enter ninth standard. Spells are powerful and also require a lot of energy for activation. With the little amount of Kundalini that we have in our bodies currently, it's better to use it for normal Skills and weapon augmentation." he explained properly. So all hope is not lost. Standing at a distance and taking out enemies might not be as exhilarating as melee fast paced fighting, but I liked the feeling of having everything under control. My experiences with the Kaalbheriyas and Pishachas at a close range weren't memorable to be honest.
Laksh handed me a Javelin and showed me the proper way to hold it, guiding my fingers and adjusting my grip.
"Watch carefully!" He ordered after taking a deep breath and stepping forward, bending his body from his waist and swinging his arm over his head.
"Continue this shadow practice whenever you're free. After getting the form right, you can fine-tune the velocity of your arm and release timing according to the distance of your target. You'll get the feeling after you start throwing the javelin. Also, the swing of your opposite arm is important. It might feel too much information but hearing about it before hand will make you able to communicate incase you're having a problem." he explained patiently after the demonstration.
"Is everybody all suited up?" Yashvi clapped her hands gathering our attention.
"So a few things you need to know about dungeons in general before we start crawling. Make sure to remember all these." she started listing things one by one. "Dungeons usually have two attributes among the seven chosen randomly as its theme. After the Vrata we went into a Fire plus Earth based dungeon. And this time as you can see, it's a Water plus Earth based one. The seven elements refers to the seven chakra attributes: Cosmos, Light, Ether, Air, Fire, Water and Earth when counted from the top to the bottom."
"Beginner dungeons usually don't have the first three attributes so no need to panic." Laksh added.
Trisha was still standing in the background silently staring at us. So creepy.
"Continuing, every party gets a separate copy of the beginner dungeon to enter and needs to be cleared from the very beginning. The other dungeons are common to all, so interference from other teams need to be taken care of in that cases. Apart from the Ashrama, there are other schools in Satya Marta where children who live there go for studying, so you might also meet unknown people. Try not to engage with them. They have been technically training for much longer than you guys. Our seniors have sometimes come across them, and things never turned out well. So it's better to run." Yashvi said with a gloomy tone.
"If they are so strong, why don't they put in efforts protecting their own dimension from Asuras? Why do we have to that?" Dweep asked.
"Apparently it's below them. The schools in Satya can only be afforded by the noble bloodlines of Kings. The students there are usually heirs and their aides from the seven kingdoms. So yeah, they got some attitude problems. You'll feel them hard to reason with, since they have been brought up with totally different morals and rules when compared to people like us who live in Alik." Yashvi explained, saying that this is what they have heard from their seniors.
"We'll think about that when we are in ninth standard." Aditi stated, waiting for the next set of information. Give her a notebook and she'll definitely start taking notes.
"Those Moss you see, are important medicinal herbs. So make sure to always collect them after you clear a section." Vihaan started talking now, "Every section will have minions and a boss. The monster species in a specific beginner dungeon will be common across all sections, but you'll find different mutated versions of it as you go deeper inside. They'll get more and more diverse in terms of size, skill and aggression. Make sure to loot the dead bodies of your enemies and don't forget to touch the Blessing Orb after a Boss is defeated. Beginner dungeons can be exited at any time, using the option in Kalpa's Status. It gets activated when you enter a dungeon, you'll find it at the top right corner. Experiences are shared among all the members in these dungeons so no need to steal each other's kills. Don't get too relaxed either. These are just practice runs to prepare you mentally for when you enter actual temple dungeons, so make the most out of it instead of lazing around." Vihaan finally stopped lecturing. It was in a good way though.
"Whenever you enter a dungeon, the most important things to take are: Extra equipment that we brought out at the beginning, lots of food that you can carry in your dimension box once you reach level 25. For now try getting to level 15 here, where you can get the dimensional pocket which can only store equipments. The next thing is loot bags, to keep different spoils isolated. Keeping them together inside the dimension box without using the bags will only create complications. You never know which ingredients might interact with each other. The Vaidyas also need to carry the equipments for medicine production and storage so that you can save your energy until the situation requires your urgent attention." Yashvi explained glancing at Trisha. Okay, so this might be her field of expertise. I'll try approaching her later.
Again, Saiyan told that he got the dimensional box after reaching lvl 20. Was he mistaken?
"That's all for now. If you're ready, just jump in. We'll be monitoring you from here, helping only when things go out of hand. You've already fought your way through the upper Lokas of Patala, so show us what you've got. Which team wants to go first? You have to switch as soon as five enemies are vanquished." Laksh gave orders, looking quite excited at the prospect of examining us.
"We'll go first." Shreya declared as her team walked forward confidently. They must have had their experiences during the teleportation incident, so they might already be good at working together. Let's see how they fare.
They went ahead closer to the stream in a straight line with Aditi at the front with her shield, then Shreya with a long sword that she held with two hands, followed by Jhanvi and Esha.
Did they wind up in a narrow area, with enemies coming from one side after the teleportation?
"It'll be fun." Finally Trisha mumbled, standing right beside me glaring daggers at the girls' team.
"Are you talking about their formation?" I asked trying to continue the conversation she started.
"Hmm." she only hummed.
That's all?
"How do you replenish your energy in a dungeon?" I asked trying to get a response out of her.
In the meantime the girls had already reached the mossy banks, having some difficulty with gaining a proper footing.
"You don't. That's why you need medicinal herbs that are present here. As a Vaidya, the lesser you use your Kundalini in mundane tasks the better." she talked while grumbling. Did I trigger some memories?
After staying silent for a while, she again started speaking, "I've heard about you. I was in a different healing unit during the Vrata, so I didn't see you, but you saved quite a few of my acquaintances' lives. But the way you used your energy was so inefficient. You could have saved so many more... if only the Vrata happened a bit later."
Vihaan and Yashvi were looking at us surprised, probably after seeing Trisha talking this much with someone.
Hearing that annoyed me a bit. It was them who were supposed to protect us, not the other way around. What were they even doing for two years? Now they're blaming everything on the curriculum as a coping mechanism.
"I thought you had no interest in talking with us." I said with a low voice.
"I... keep thinking about what to say, choosing my words carefully, and then suddenly decide it's better not to say it at all. I prefer listening to others." She looked down yet her expression didn't change much.
Ahh. She's a little too considerate about what others think about her. But if she doesn't say anything herself, people are bound to get misconceptions.
"What about your actual team? They are not your teammates right?" I asked with a whisper, pointing my thumb at the other three seniors.
"Yeah, personally they're not. Vihaan and Laksh are in the same team. Yashvi lost one of her teammates when they went to Bhuvar Loka, and I lost two. I recently joined her team while my other team mate went to a different one. They didn't like me replacing their friend with whom they have been for the last two years. I understood that and didn't try to get closer. That's all I think." she whispered in an even lower tone.
"You're already better than me in healing. So I thought there was nothing for me to teach you. I would have approached Esha asking if she wanted some tips if your team went out first." Trisha mumbled. Why is she still grumbling? Is that how she usually talked?
"You can show me how to manufacture the medicinal pastes instead. Or you can tell me how to efficiently heal others, since you think I've been inefficient." I suggested genuinely.
She glanced at me for a second wondering whether the interest I showed was just for the sake of conversation and nodded after a while.
There was thud sound where the girls were engaging with the Makara, signifying the start of the battle.
"They are funny looking, yet terrifying." Anik mumbled judging the appearance of Makara.
The girls were wading through the stream, with water upto their knees as they assumed battle stances focusing on the enemies nearby. Aditi was already thwarting a Makara's attempts to grab her leg with her circular training shield. Shreya swung her long sword over her head, bringing it down on the elephant trunk like snout of the monster.
A Makara is a hybrid of different aquatic beings, having the base body of a crocodile. It had webbed feet like a platypus or a duck, much smaller than normal croc feet, while having a trunk of an elephant that looked more like a snake instead as the upper part of its snout. The lower part of it was dotted with sharp teeth that kept snapping at the shield, sending cracks across its surface. She should have augmented the shield with her own Kundalini. Did she not think much of the monsters just because it was the first level of the dungeon?
Two more Makara swam from the left after sensing the commotion. Jhanvi sent two iron arrows aiming for their eyes, but one Makara swung its trunk deflecting one of them. The other arrow found a soft spot and wedged itself in the cheek of the second one. Deep yellow blood with some hint of green started oozing out from the wound as the croc like monster twisted itself trying to dislodge the arrow from its body.
Aditi and Shreya after making short work of the trunk less Makara turned around in opposite directions, with Aditi intercepting another one coming from the right and Shreya swinging her sword at the Makara which had defended itself using its trunk. The four members were swift and kept changing positions as they heard instructions from Esha who kept pinpointing the location of the submerged Makara. Her eyes kept darting across the stream, shining with a weird green-like glow while she kept standing on the bank, not entering the stream herself.
"Jhanvi! 11 o'clock, 3 meters."
"Aditi, two incoming. 1 and 3. ETA 8 secs."
Her Space Comprehension passive must be quite high to be able to calculate distances like that on the spot.
"Woah... They are quite organised!" Vihaan exclaimed with surprise. "Esha is impressive. She's properly using Cloaking without attracting the attention of Makaras, while giving accurate prompts."
Trisha got gloomier. Her job was cut down massively because of experienced juniors. Having visited Patala this early on was indeed fruitful, excluding the fact that we have lost lives there. For their team, it might be the case that someone has a single life left.
Aditi and Shreya managed to kill three Makar together, while Jhanvi killed only one, shooting an arrow right through its eyes directly penetrating the brain of the creature.
I suddenly remembered the equal experience distribution and messaged Panna.
"Is this a good time to talk?" I sent and kept watching the team fight the final two Makara.
"You wanted to increase the proportion of experience that Kalpa gets?" She messaged back after a few minutes, understanding my intentions. "See Dhruva, it is better to have more storages instead of filters, since in a fight finding a Shakti Rekha to stand on is highly unlikely. It's better to continue the same arrangement."
I didn't say anything else as she went quiet after that. I have been giving her time and space to sort out her thoughts but her current actions are quite contradictory to her previously expressed intentions of wanting to talking with me more.
"I'm sorry for making you worry." she suddenly sent a message. "But I'm always watching over you. Give me a little more time. I need to come to terms with a few things."
I sighed and looked up at the glowing moss covering the ceiling. I can't even get angry or upset at her.
"Get ready. This is their fifth one." Saiyan announced, brandishing his training sword and walking forward.
"Anik, you saw ordinary arrows won't work until you aim for its eyes. Decide what you want to do. Dweep, this is a different shield so bashing your opponents won't give a similar result to Dhruva's shield that you've been using. Dhruva, you wanna stay back to learn medicine manufacturing or come with us?" Saiyan asked each one of us one by one.
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Dweep picked up a one handed war axe from the pile of training weapons and swung it twice. "Hopefully this will work."
Having practiced with a two handed battle axe called Parashu, this should be piece of cake for him.
"I'll mark five Makara, with my arrows at the beginning of the fight and let's take them out one by one skipping the others in the middle. What do you say?" Anik suggested.
"I'll go to the front lines for now. With increased agility the Makara shouldn't be too much of a problem for me. I just have to try not to get caught." I conveyed my intentions confidently. Being able to somehow react against the Pishachas, I should be able to do the same with these Makara.
"They're done. Let's go." Saiyan said and jumped down to the green bank. Anik sent five arrows in different directions, scattering the herd of Makara that had congregated where the girl team was fighting. Sensing danger in different areas, the monsters, acting as reinforcements, paddled toward their fellow comrades who seemed to have been suddenly attacked.
"Start from the left. Go. Go!" Saiyan was brute forcing his way through the swamp in an incredible speed towards the Makara whose friends hadn't reached it yet.
He dodged at a dangerously close distance, jumping over the Makara, running his sword along the creature's snout and across its forehead, spilling out its brains.
"Ohh." he looked back after landing like a graceful cat but on two legs. "On to the next then!!"
Dweep went ahead first and slammed his shield down onto the neck of the second Makara. It twisted, getting free of the binding force and swiped its thick tail at Dweep's legs. He planted his legs and stood like a rock, red Kundalini covering the part which clashed against the tail leaving it unscathed. The Makara, retreated when its attack failed, only to get impaled by two arrows, their tips augmented with Kundalini, that went right through its head leaving entry and exit holes.
Isn't this too easy? I kept thinking. I should have just taken the medicinal tutorial instead.
"Can I go and try taking down a Makara just by myself?" I asked Saiyan looking back at him.
"Okay." He nodded, "Anik, keep a watch over Dhruva."
"Okay. Let loose." Anik sent a thumbs-up.
Saiyan and Dweep went to slaughter the third Makara and I went deeper into the stream trying to get close to the fourth monster.
Currently what skills do I have? That can be used for offense? How do skills even work? Did I ever think about it deeply?
I kept scanning the water as the rear feathery end of an arrow stuck out from the stream for a short while before gradually disappearing.
I only had Bonk and Wood Flesh that can be somewhat used as offensives. But let's not waste Kundalini unnecessarily like Trisha said. I gripped the Javelin in my hand and attached a thin Kundalini thread using up only 0.1 points of it.
Long Thread. Elastic. Retractable.
Adding more properties used up more points, 0.2, 0.2 and 0.5 each. Just a single thread required 1 whole Kundalini point now. Who knew Retractable property would take that amount of energy to apply?
Aiming at the bottom of the arrow which was stuck at the back of the Makara, I bent my waist and swung my arm releasing the Javelin, but it lost momentum after entering the water and was harmlessly deflected away, against the hide of the monster.
I imagined the Kundalini string attached to my Javelin getting wound back, retracting as I gave my left arm a jerk, trying to bring back the weapon right into my left hand.
And it did.
As it pierced right through my wrist bringing out a grunt of pain from my throat.
I instantly jumped back, gritting my teeth and pulling it out, using another point of Kundalini to cast Recovery over the wound.
Kundalini now stood at 6 points.
Well, it worked but not in a way I had intended. Being in fifth standard and not having knowledge about physics sucked a lot. Only way is to get a feeling after practicing for hundreds of times then.
Before I could get back my bearings, the perpendicular arrow started speeding towards me like a shark fin.
"You need help?" Dweep asked, "That's the last one."
"You're bending your waist only. Add a spin to your upper body. Not straight to right. But from top left to bottom right. As if you're bowling a cricket ball." Laksh gave pointers from behind.
I again changed my grip and swung my upper body releasing the javelin right after my first crossed my face, as it penetrated the water and got stuck just like the marking arrow.
I again retreated, jerking back my arm as the javelin freed itself and sped towards me. Dodging the returning projectile properly, I again picked it up settling the weapon in my hand. I was slowly moving back to shallower waters. On my right, Dweep engaged with two Makara, keeping them away but not killing them. The fact that they were giving me enough time to try things out made me feel fuzzy inside. Saiyan kept dodging another one, as if playing bull fighting with it.
"Three more are coming towards you from your left." Anik announced from the back, "You don't have much time."
I kept stepping back until the snout of the Makara was out of the water, and swung my body again, releasing the javelin with a sense of satisfaction. It pierced through the trunk and lodged itself into the lower jaw in an inclined fashion. But the wound was miles away from the brain. It started squirming, trying to break the javelin to free its mouth, that was now stuck in a half opened state.
"Saiyan. Give me the Kundalini Sword." I asked, "This is taking too much time."
He summoned the dimensional pocket and brought out the sword that I had made in Sutala for him.
"Ickkk!!" Saiyan suddenly stepped back from his own dimensional pocket. Calming himself down, he gripped the sword handle and threw it towards me like it was some kind of an unholy object. It sailed through the air, and landed on the mossy bank with a splat. From the Red Sword, dozens of worms were peeking their cone shaped heads out, wiggling in all directions.
A suddenly Realisation lit up in my mind. That's cool. I picked it up carefully and planted my leg on the squirming Makara using all my strength. The additive strength stat from both the status was no joke. The monster was only able to frantically move its tail in different directions, unable to move its actual body anymore.
Gripping the handle of the sword with two hands, I brought it down, penetrating just enough to give my drill earthworms access to the flesh below the leathery hide. I pulled both my weapons out and retreated away from the maniacal Makara that was going crazy twisting and turning on the stream bank. I started counting with the goal of examining the outcome of my experiment. Are the drill earthworms still working as intended? Even after merging themselves with the Kundalini Sword?
"Eleven, Twelve, Thirteen..." I stopped when the Makara gave up struggling and relaxed. Forever.
"Let's go back. It's time for their team next." Saiyan ordered as we fell back, and climbed up to the elevated land overlooking the middle swamp.
The girls jumped down to engage with the next set of minions.
"That was a pathetic display." Trisha said awkwardly.
I get now why she isn't favourable among her peers. She doesn't know which words to choose under which condition, making her come off as condescending.
"Don't get angry and listen carefully. I'll talk to you in a same tone like you did with me right now. Tell me if you like it or not. Are you ready?" I told Trisha directly.
"Okay...?"
"Guess you wouldn't know how it is like for a person to try something out for the first time. Since you have never done anything new other than making a paste out of stupid plants." I said it all in a single breath.
Laksh and Vihaan snickered hearing that from a distance and looked away pretending that they had no idea what we were talking about.
"So? Do you feel angry or offended?" I asked raising my eyebrows.
"What you told me is the truth which I can't deny. So I don't feel annoyed or offended right now. Tell me, what would you have preferred hearing?" she asked instead.
I lamented at her condition. "I don't feel frustrated anymore, so let's just leave it at that."
I handed the Kundalini sword to Saiyan, "Keep this sealed for now. Make sure not to get cut with it. I'll modify it later while sitting on a Shakti Rekha."
The battle was raging again at the swamps, as directions came from Esha in her crystal clear voice. I kept throwing my Javelin again and again a bit away from the crowd, pulling it back slowly like a fishing line instead of retracting it like before. What a waste of 0.5 points of Kundalini.
"You don't wanna go with us this time?" Dweep asked. Five Makara were already killed?
"Nope, I'll practice throwing this for now until I realize the skill. Come to me incase you get hurt. Best of luck." I said and concentrated on throwing the projectile and pulling it back again and again. Laksh came up and stood behind me, watching my form from the back and kept suggesting changes to it. He grabbed my shoulders and rotated it with my spine as an axis.
"Since I use a spear generally heavier than a javelin, which can also be thrown depending on circumstances, the amount of effort I require to chuck my weapon directly at the enemy is much more. I have seen this fishing style of Javelin retrieval among eight standards. To have such a precise understanding about Tethers is quite rare. I usually use Tethers for maintaining the Kundalini augmentation over my spear tip. Anything else as a Yoddha seems to be a waste, until I cultivate better skills. You have a lot more flexibility than me, so keep trying things out." he encouraged.
I glanced back once to see Trisha standing in the middle of the gap between the camp and my practice area listening carefully to what Laksh was telling me. Is she trying to learn from Laksh now? On how to encourage other people? Oh Laksh, how I underestimated you before entering this dungeon. He's one of the coolest seniors, only just bored out of his mind.
Kalpa's status now had a Beginner Javelin Throwing skill at level 1. I seem to acquire these fast, but getting them to level up will be a different story altogether.
"Thanks for your teachings Laksh. I'll keep practicing to level this skill up."
"No problemo..." he smiled patting my shoulders.
I walked back to the camp and saw the four girl classmates chilling, stretching their legs and loosening their arms.
"Did you get a hang of it?" Esha asked, "It was kinda funny to be honest, watching you learn throwing javelins directly like that."
"With danger right in front of us, people usually focus harder and tend to store the sensations as important memories. It was enough for me to get the skill. Now I have to practice it continuously." I replied to her query plus taunt.
"By the way, did you come here just to repeat what you did in Atala or Vitala? Or will you try to learn new things that might be beneficial for you?" I added my part of the taunt.
"It would be better for you to refrain from talking like that." Aditi sneered at me, "Just because she's being friendly doesn't mean you can speak whatever that comes to your mind."
I glared back at her for a second and broke contact. Let's just leave it at that.
"I'll be learning medicine manufacturing from Trisha next. You can come if you're interested." I said it loud enough for Trisha to hear and walked up to her. "I hope you won't mind?"
"Bring me some moss from the banks and some from the walls of this cave. I'll prepare the equipments." she listed my to do task and sat down where she was.
While gathering the ingredients, I kept thinking about my skills. Was I even using them properly? That thing about efficiency mentioned by Trisha kept hammering the back of my mind.
My traits are Fabrication and Fast Acquisition. One currently lets me be creative with my Kundalini, allowing me to easily imbue it with properties after loads of continuous practice. The second one helps me to realise an abstract intention into a quantifiable skill relatively faster. The rest depends on how much I repeat the process or gain enlightenment in that field. I'm sure they can be interpreted in more ways, but now I'm stuck because of my immaturity. Hopefully I can get better in future.
Next will be my Passives. My disposition gave birth to those skills, when my mundane characteristics and life experiences are all taken into account.
Reasoning, Intuition, Visualization, Space Comprehension, Chitram, Chanting and Concentration came from the skills I had cultivated back at Alik through studying, playing sports, sketching and chanting.
Mental Fortitude, Parallel Processing, Kundalini Conductivity, Kundalini Tethering, Shakti To Kundalini Conversion came after I endured the pain back at my training cave taking in unregulated Shakti to awaken my chakra. Parallel processing and Shakti to Kundalini conversion came because of Panna's intervention. I developed Tethering earlier than others after getting hints from the senior when he had explained me how weapon augmentation worked during the Vrata.
For my active skills, there are three types. The ones derived from Panna:
Field of protection, which releases my Kundalini in the form of small particles in an area surrounding me, providing Kundalini to others. When activated with Recovery, the particles also gain a healing effect, for everything that it touches within that field. High wastage of Kundalini. Is this what she meant by being inefficient?
I had formulated a way of using Kundalini Tethers along with field of protection and Recovery by compressing the spreading particles into proper channels that will be attached to specific people. It uses up a lot of brain power and will require all my focus to maintain it.
One with nature, which is also derived from Panna where we feed a bit of our energy to the plants nearby, allowing Panna to get temporary control over them. Only helpful in jungles with lots of wastage again.
Recovery, Wood Flesh and Bonk are also gifts from her, with wood flesh granting me the protection of a tree in the form of barks, and bonk was the only offensive skill that was given as a formality. Nothing but an accelerated hand movement. Recovery is a simple healing skill that she gave me, considering I was a Vaidya according to Kalpa.
Second type was developed by myself with help from others:
Kundalini Cloaking was taught to me by Somi, which can be used for stagnating the movement of the energies within me, to hide my presence as a chakra bearer.
Akshara Skill was hinted to me by Saiyan, who already knew about important skills from his cousin who's studying in tenth standard. It requires a whole lot of Kundalini to create basic shapes, attach Tethers and imbue properties and attributes. Tethering and Akshara are skills that I can say are truly mine, both of which are very closely related to my Fabrication trait. Tethers provide a remote connection to the Aksharas I create, allowing me to command them or activate their properties that were imbued while they were being created. It also connects me to the targets of my skills. Akshara is also heavily dependent on my Fabrication trait as it was influenced by how creative I was with my intentions, properties and their base shapes.
Taking the drill earthworms as an example, it was an Akshara imbued with the properties of earth, elasticity, and a pre program of reaching the nearest active organ whenever the tether to its main body is severed, with a drill augmentation on its head. It also had Two Tethers: First one attached to the augmentation in the form of a drill, which can be activated manually or automatically depending on the intention or pre program used while creating it.
Second one is for the main body of the worm, which can again be programmed to work in specific ways when the connection is either active or down.
In future, having more Kundalini reserves will allow me to form complex Aksharas with multiple purposes. The problem is that I have to make them before hand, while sitting on a Shakti Rekha since it takes a lot of time and resources to create. Another problem might be their duration. After a Tether to an Akshara is severed, it will follow it's program until all of its latent energy is used up. From this I gathered why the drill earthworms that were holding Anik's arrows together inside Saiyan's dimensional pocket had found their shelter within the Kundalini Sword. Their latent energy was going to be used up after they kept searching for an organ in that dimensional space, after my Tethers were severed. To save themselves, they took refuge inside the sword which was rich with Kundalini, creating such an absurd weapon. This means that the Aksharas do have some basic survival instincts. That weapon will be a precursor to a lot of weapons that I'll be creating later for my friends, hopefully. The only thing stopping me is my imagination and energy reserves.
Finally my latest skill: Skill Transfer, even though quantified by Panna, is only an extension of Tethers, Field of Protection, and Aksharas. Given enough time I would have awakened it by myself, by controlling the intention of the Kundalini leaving my body and its effect on this world. Panna simply accelerated the process with her powers and realised it faster.
The third type is derived from Kalpa, which are inefficient and less powerful versions of the ones I already have from Panna, so no need to look at them any further.
What are the limitations of these skills? Everyone told me that reaching level 6 will be easy. After that I'll need enlightenment in those skills to push further. Maybe in the future I'll find some gaps and gain enlightenment from solving those problems myself. I have also seen that those cases award me with some extra intelligence stats which are a welcome bonus.
I returned after gathering my ingredients. Trisha had already prepared several cylindrical and triangular glass vessels, mortar and pestle, tubes and some metal nets.
"What are these called?" Esha pointed at the glass utensils.
"Beakers." Trisha answered, "Everything is really fragile so handle carefully."
Looks like a chemistry practical class. We'll have them during seventh standard I think. Will I be able to understand what she's showing us? I'll just try to memorize the way she moves and the timings between her actions for now.
Trisha took the ingredients, setting up the beakers over the metal nets with flames underneath that she lit up using white cubes. She made a paste of the river bank moss first and placed it inside the beaker with boiling water. The green vapors went through some tubes to produce a light green and yellowish fluid that was collected in a beaker. Next the cave wall moss was sent through, but for much shorter time. The fluids were collected and again set aside.
Next the two were separately boiled again, sent through two different tubes which mixed into a single one properly mixing them into a deep yellow fluid. She brought out several long tubes, and filled them one by one with the concoction, sealing them tight with corks.
"This is the general health recovery potion made using the moss found in beginner dungeons. As you go out into the Lokas, you'll come across various ingredients and all of them will have different prep techniques. You'll have to remember them all and experiment a lot." She explained a very daunting task, "You guys want to try once?"
"Save it for later." Vihaan and Laksh got ready, standing up. "The girls' team are in a pinch without Esha. Send her out fast. After this batch, only the boss will be left."
I walked up to my team who were relaxing, and slapped Anik's shoulder. "Guess you guys don't need me anymore."
"Don't joke. If we ever tell you that you're not needed, send us to only Atala once. No need to go much deeper. A few lives will be lost and we'll truly won't need you anymore, becoming Forgotten forever." he seriously told me, making me surprised. Anik really had a knack of letting us hear what we wanted to. He only starts acting goofy infront of the opposite gender.
"Saiyan, how far are you from level 25? Once you get the dimensional box, we can store our loots too." I asked looking at him.
The girls' team have now regained their composure, and were currently hunting the final two Makara.
"It's 23 currently. Two more left. After the boss is taken care of, we might be able to gain two levels at once. Let's see." he said.
And here I was, not even levelling up once for any status.
"You two also levelled up?" I asked looking back at Dweep and Anik.
"We were under 10 before. And got two level ups." Anik answered.
"I'm still 9." Dweep notified with a disappointed face.
"Saiyan, you told that you got the pocket at level 20? Shouldn't it be level 15? If we get a better version at level 25?" I asked.
"It might be 15. I jumped directly to 20 after we... ahh, did that..." Saiyan stopped awkwardly, reminding us of our crimes.
Dweep and Anik got gloomier than expected.
"Sorry. I shouldn't have mentioned it." Saiyan whispered.
"Let's get to level 15 for now. You can keep your huge ass shields inside. And you can stock up on hundreds of arrows. You have those Pishacha claws no? When will you make arrows from them?" I tried to bring up different things that interested them usually.
Anik took a deep breath and slapped his cheeks.
Dweep didn't do anything like that. He simply closed his eyes for a few seconds and opened them again.
"Let's just go as deep as we can for now." Dweep said after picking up his shield that was lying on the ground.
A massive whirlpool suddenly appeared in the middle of the pond where the stream emptied its contents.
"Go down. You must have seen how the other team fights by now. Take care of the Boss together, in a party of eight. Best of luck. We'll be watching." Yashvi announced so that the other team could also hear her.
Jumping down from the elevated land, we joined Shreya's team taking our positions.
We decided to augment their team formation, instead of maintaining our own. Their single file formation is better for bosses.
Aditi and Dweep stood at the front from left to right.
Shreya on Aditi's close left. Saiyan on Dweep's right.
Jhanvi and Esha stood side by side instead, to my left, which we also mirrored with Anik on my right.
Dead bodies of the Makara were already floating all around us. The streams were now dyed with a yellowish hue. Let's not imagine it like that. We are Not wading through a river of piss.
Let's make Tethers for the seven of them just in case. Since Yashvi will be making food for us, I'll be able to replenish my Prana atleast.
I used up 3 more points of Kundalini, to create the seven Tethers and connected myself to the members of the party. Their bodies jerked once, when they felt the foreign sensation of something attaching to their body.
"Ughh, haven't felt that for quite a while." Dweep looked back and smiled awkwardly. He's surely thinking about leeches right now.
"What the hell are you doing?" Aditi shouted from up front.
"Why do you keep complaining about everything? Just shut up and do what you're supposed to do. I'm also making sure none of you lose your lives... in case shit hits the fan." I shouted back at her.
"It's so disgusting, weghh..." Esha mumbled beside me, making sure not to look sideways.
"Sorry about that." I gave her an embarrassed smile.
"How much of our information can you access with that? Is this your trait? Can you read minds with these?" Esha asked one after another.
"These are Tethers. You'll learn about it this year only. It's a one way connection. I can only give, and can't take anything. So don't worry. But there are actually guys who can read minds." I added the last bit trying to tease her.
"Really?" she looked horrified.
"Yep. There's someone like that in my team only. Try to guess who is it."
"It's here." As soon as Esha said that, getting distracted because of the massive energy accumulating at the pool, a loud deafening roar echoed throughout the cave. The whirlpool started bubbling and achieved max turbulence. A huge shadow of about 25 feet appeared right below the surface, marking the diameter of the pond.
The Makara Boss was finally appearing.