Indra always marvelled at this beautiful sensation he felt whenever he entered the game. As he drew in a deep breath, he had to remind himself that this was not real. Remind himself, that in reality, he was not a leader of an army. This was to all intents and purposes, ‘a game’. Of course, this feeling would recede as time passed. It always did. Indra was one of the rare players who resisted the urge to become a “Perma”.

He had been playing Samsara for about one year now. He had single-handedly discovered ways and means to unlock the “Prāna Manipulation” skills which were the closest equivalent to what a ‘Mage’ used to be in other games. This was another facet of Samsāra which Indra loved. There were established mathematical models of what RPGs were supposed to contain, to even out combat and give players a flavour of different combat styles.

Mostly it was followed the format: A style of play using defensive tactics with low damage output to the target, or a style for offensive tactics with very low defence, and a combination of the two based on damage type. Long-range or Melee-range.

There were also ‘healers’, players who forgo damage output in favour of healing their allies or increasing the ally attributes. There were some particular types of combat which included Stealth and the ability to control other entities.

But all of this summed up the combat in RPGs.

Samsāra took this model and had changed it tremendously. In Samsāra every player could learn any type of combat they wished. This was because there were no ‘set’ skills in the game. Archery depended on actually being able to aim and understand the physics behind projectile flight at a subconscious level.

The human mind tends to become calcified in the type of computation it can perform. Some are adept at visual processing, some are excellent at auditory data handling. Some minds are exceptional at precise control of movements in space, while some can do abstract thinking.

All minds are a combination of such fundamental traits, with each proficiency being at a different level. This was part of what made the human mind so complex and each mind so unique.

Samsāra embraced this. Instead of expecting users to be able to just have fast reaction times to specific sets of actions. Actions they did or were performed by others or by the environment, Samsāra made all skills potentially available to all. Over time, it was the players who decided what worked for them. Samsāra also allowed players to alter their own ability to do some action. Archery and targeting could be learnt aggressively till it was second nature.

The art of reading movement in combat could be honed over countless bloody fights. The ability to analysed complicated geometrical and mathematical patterns in the abstruse Mandala diagrams needed for the energy manipulation could be ground into one’s thought process. This all needed time, but in full immersion, all players had sufficient time.

Samsāra took care of that. Players tended to learn things at a faster rate than in real life when they had no worries about their real-life bindings.

Indra had realised this when he first started playing Samsāra. Each player passed through a training phase where they would be in simulated environments, getting used to their new ‘bodies’. This gave their mind time to adjust to a new version of sensory inputs and also, the possibility of alteration of the thought process. Indra had unlocked the ability to feel his internal ‘energy’ by concentration via deep meditation. This had granted him the ability to sense and manipulate the universal energy called Prāna in the game.

He was not the only one who had done so, but he was good at this.

Then, he started thinking about types of Prāna he could sense and realised his affinity with the ‘Fire’ type. Thus, Indra became the first-ever ‘Fire Tāntric’ in the game.

His popularity rocketed, and he was soon organising raids on the enemies of the human kingdom. Under his tutelage, others unlocked their skills and affinities. Over time, racial traits were discovered, and now, some people could use any of the five elemental types of Prāna.

Of course, the Āsura, that one rare race that not many people chose to play with, had a specific racial bonus. They would be able to manipulate only the ‘Void’ type of Prāna. This was a severe handicap in one sense because the methods to manipulate the Prānic energies were via energy diagrams and the more powerful the energy type, the more subtle the diagrams became.

Void Yogis were thus extremely popular as teammates and were revered and nurtured by many prominent leaders.

Āsura could do this on their own. But, the inability to utilise any other type of Prānic energy was a cruel price to pay for this.

Indra knew from experience just how powerful and useful the ability to manipulate Prāna was. But the Void energies were corrosive and dangerous, many a time not differentiating between friend and foe. If that were the only choice one had for Energy based attacks, not many would opt for such a deadly double-edged sword. It was no wonder then that almost all the Āsura he had met used Prāna in physical combat. Almost everyone used it to enhance their naturally bestowed weapons than use it the way it was supposed to be used.

Indra cut short his musing when he heard footsteps behind him. He turned around to find his beautiful assistant, a virtual presence generated by the game for him personally standing behind him. The Avatār would have no problems accommodating his every wish, but he just could not do it.

“Indra, your acclimation with the world of Samsāra has reached almost 100%. It is time to enter your domain again. You are getting much better at this, so I would suggest you stop logging out so often”.

Indra, who resisted becoming a Perma, logged out of the game every 2 months 29 days to spend two weeks in the real world. No one knew why he did so, even Vishwāmitra. But, Indra was tremendously popular in the streams, a steady source of revenue for Vishwāmitra. No one questioned his decisions.

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To the world of Samsāra, whenever someone logged out, their Avatār was supposed to have taken Samādhi, a form of secluded meditation. This suspended their bodies and insulated them from the game.

Of course, they could perform no action during this time and needed to acclimate to being ‘reborn’ after each episode of suspension.

The acclimation time was the time needed for the MindState of a person to forget the real world and then attune itself to Samsāra again.

Perma players never logged out, so they never had this issue.

This condition of Samādhi was also how the game dealt with in-game death. Whenever a player died, their soul would enter Samādhi. Then, their soul would be judged by Yama the god of death in this world. If they had performed good deeds, they accrued good Karma, if they had performed evil deeds, the accrued bad Karma. Based on their Karma, they would be either rewarded or punished in their ‘rebirth’. So, if someone tortured another, they would suffer severe penalties and punishments, both in and out of the game.

Nothing was hidden from Yama. Even the devotees of the religious faction behind this deity were not spared.

“Yes, I am ready to be reborn again. It is getting easier and easier now. I sometimes wonder whether I would stop going home altogether.” As Indra said this, he was observing the figure in front of him. He always had his own private version of a Turing test that he used on his assistant. He knew fully well that the figure in front of him was not a human mind but a construct made from clever programming. It could pass every single Turing test the world could throw at it, but he never stopped trying to catch it unawares.

She smiled and said, “Then why don’t you do so? Why go back out there? Not that it is any of my business, but it seems too much trouble if you ask me.”

Slightly miffed by this perfect answer, Indra replied in a somewhat acerbic tone than he meant to use, “I am not asking you am I?”

To his mild irritation, the figure of his assistant smiled at him gently and said, “No. You are not. Are you ready now?”. Indra nodded his acceptance and then went inside the small hut his ‘home’ space was.

Each player was provided with a safe inaccessible virtual area. They could model it as they wished, and it served as a gateway between the world of Samsāra and the real one.

They could read about the real world here, use the MindNet for accessing the information from the world’s networks, communicate with whomever they wished within the outside world. They could observe the streams of the world of Samsāra but could not interact with it.

They could change their Avatār characteristics through training if they wished, but this training worked really slowly and had markedly less potency than doing so in the game world.

Indra would spend his time in his home space wandering about in the garden he had designed it to be. There was a small hut with two doors, one led to Samsāra and the other to the outside world.

As the acclimation time ended, the door to the outside world grew fainter, before almost merging with the wall. At the same time, the door to Samsāra would become more and more prominently visible. Now, it was the only door he could touch inside the hut. The other had almost completely vanished. It was time to take the last step, the one that wiped away his short term memories of the real world as well. He had already forgotten who he was besides Indra. This was the point of the game, after all. Shivering in excited anticipation, he turned and reminded his assistant to put him into Samādhi 2 months and 29 days from the moment he stepped in.

After receiving confirmation from his assistant and accepting a legal notification from the system, Indra walked towards the door with calm and steady steps. Indra had always smirked at the content of this notification that everyone joining the game had to accept. It had always appeared just before entering the world. And, It stated that the player authorised Vishwāmitra to perform an emergency logout in the case where the player’s mental health or physical health was threatened. The notice also said that in such a situation, Indra would not hold the system responsible for the loss of any assets in the game world.

Then, as Indra touched the door, it melted, and a gentle force pushed him through the door frame. A soft white mist filled his eyes before everything went black for a second. Then, slowly at first but growing stronger by the instant, a faint sound caught his attention.

“Thud!”….. “Thud!”…. followed by a rush of wind, increasing in tempo and then stopping before doing the same.

It took Indra a moment to realise that he could hear his heart again. The ‘whoosh’ he heard was his breath, even and steady. He had come out of Samādhi again.

As his mind came online, his body which was sitting in the full Lotus position or the Padmāsana started to awaken. Some times, Indra would hate the fact that he needed to enter Samādhi after every 2 months 29 days for his body to heal itself from the damage caused by the Prānic energies he allowed to flow through it.

But, that was the price of power, and everyone paid this price in one way or another. Indra opened his eyes and looked around his meditation chamber. It was gently lit with oil lamps, and there was no sound besides the susurration of the wind in the palm trees outside. He exhaled before getting his feet.

The strange thing was that his body had not cramped up even if it was sitting for two weeks. This surprised his every single time. Yoga was a fantastic thing, indeed.

As he was getting up, there was a slight tap on the closed door. Indra smiled at this. He knew who this was, his second in command Vajra had come to meet him. Vajra was never late, and smiling wryly to himself Indra admitted, was becoming fast indispensable for Indra in running his guild.

He washed his face and mouth with cool water that was kept in a basin next to the window. A balcony faced the outside of the palatial mansion he lived in. It was pitch dark outside, a cool summer night. Vajra had come to apprise him of the recent events. He turned to the door, ‘Time to return to the world again!’.