Chereads / Rakshak of Kalpa / Chapter 45 - 1.44 League X Utsaav 1. (5.6k)

Chapter 45 - 1.44 League X Utsaav 1. (5.6k)

"What the hell?" I gawked wide-eyed into the deep blue dimensional cuboid, the size of a football field, where the third match of our inter Gurukul league was taking place.

For the first time, seeing the names of the Gurukuls on the leader board, I remembered the names of the Seven Celestial Sages: The Saptarishis.

They represent the seven stars of the Ursa Major constellation in the night skies and currently reside in the Bhuvar Loka.

Vashisth: Namesake of our Gurukul, located in the eastern part of the country.

Pulastya: Somi's friend, Ariya's Gurukul. In the West.

Kratu: Somi's Gurukul, Northwest.

Pulah: Shreya's Gurukul, Central North.

Angiras: Soovam's Gurukul, Central part of the country.

Atri: Vihaan and Laksh's Gurukul. Southwest.

Mareechi: Gurukul for the powerful Rakshaks with unique Traits. Southeast.

Hopefully, I'll get to make friends with someone from the Mareechi Gurukul. That's the only one left. They usually don't mingle with us and stay in their own dorms, trying to control their powers.

Once they are able to do that, they can shoot up through the rankings very quickly. It's only a matter of time for them.

The current fort capture game was happening between Vashisth and Angiras, the third one of this league.

Even though I was seeing a fight between the seventh standards for the third time, I was still getting surprised at the shamelessness of my seniors.

People were copying skills from their favorite characters belonging to various media as if they were free real estate.

But one thing that boggled my mind was their usage of Kundalini.

"How the hell are you guys doing this much with only 8 points of Kundalini?" I asked Jay, who was sitting beside me in the special area meant for the substitutes of one of the participating teams.

"Vessel growth. It grows the more you filter and conduct your energy. My 8 points and Archit's 8 points will be quite different in usage, release efficiency, and storage capacities." He explained.

"Archit being a Yoddha will require strengthening, retaining, and augmentation efficiency instead of release efficiency. While you'll require low retaining and high releasing efficiency?" I asked for confirmation of my knowledge of the basics.

"Yeah. Different people have different requirements; you'll have to compromise on some to get better at others. You can't have all of them. If you design your vessels such that they retain some part of the energy inside your body, then you'll experience loss in the Kundalini releasing technique for your Aksharas. Consequently, you'll fail at having proper body enhancement skills if you get seamless energy release techniques. Tradeoffs, that's all." He agreed.

I concentrated on the battle that was going on right now.

The Rakshaks from Angiras were wary of Jay's skills. They all stayed behind in their fort and defended without coming out into the jungle that separated the two forts.

FYI, The substitutes can't directly engage after the battle starts and can only watch from outside the cuboid. Even our messages won't be reaching them inside. But they can have a group chat inside.

"Give me three binding, two healing, four Gatlin traps." Jay ordered.

The substitute area was equipped with a Chakra that released pre-filtered Kundalini around us at a constant rate. I needed to gain control over it with my Tethers, aggregate them into blobs of energy, and give it forms and functions like I have been doing for the last three Satya weeks with Jay.

Getting barraged by arrows that burst out like fireworks, the three members of our team hugged the trees closely to protect their bodies.

Two of them were defending the fort, along with ten Kusa Clones, who took after the team's leader, while three were on the offensive.

Archit, the leader of our team, was ambitious. He didn't want a draw. It's either winning or winning for him.

An arrow from the enemies suddenly hit the ceiling of the cuboid, morphing into an elliptical orange fiery eye, bringing out a snort from me.

It gave me PTSD of Rahu's eye that I had seen through the crack in the sky before getting teleported to the lower dimension of Sutala.

Using a hand signal, the three members activated their shields, which were developed by me and Jay using my fog Kundalini bead technology.

Everyone was given a group of fog beads installed with commands written by Jay using 3D Coordinate geometry, using the authentication bead as the origin point.

I didn't know it before, but Jay came up with something interesting. He realized we could even put commands into the Tethers. I don't know why I never thought about trying it.

Once the authentication bead located on the chest of our members is activated, the Tethers will change lengths to the constant radius of a sphere.

The Kundalini beads at the end of the Tethers will then expand according to the number of taps used to activate the authentication bead.

Neat trick. But the command sheet my teammates had to memorize was enormous.

Their body was riddled with trap, shield, tracking, and offensive authentication beads for the different fogs moving along with them.

Last week, they practiced 'touching' themselves at different points on their body according to the command cheat sheet Jay and I developed.

Wait, that didn't come out right. Let's go with poking instead.

Concentrated rays of orange fiery energy rained down from above like a satellite laser attack, slamming and dissipating against our shields.

Suddenly, our Surakshak turned around to look at something deep into the forest, in the opposite direction of the substitute area. For context, the substitute area was where the coaches of football teams walked around shouting during the matches.

He charged without giving any heed to the attacks from above.

One of the attacks hit him head-on, but he emerged as if it was simply sunlight. Seeing that, Archit started giving orders to the other guy with him, our Vaidya. The Vaidya rejected his orders by shaking his head defiantly and then saying something with a reassuring look.

Before they could conclude, the northern section of our fort exploded, sending pieces of burning Kusa grass Clones and rubble into the air.

Archit and the Vaidya deactivated their shields and ran through the lasers that were striking the ground from above without fear in their eyes, directly toward the enemy base.

With this, we shifted our views to look at the holographic windows that showed what was currently happening within the forts.

Our fort was already invaded by five enemies, but a smile crept up both mine and Jay's lips.

"See, I told you they'd try shit like this." He chuckled.

Along the long corridor that connected the northern and central part of the fort, the Rakshaks from Angiras stepped around weirdly, looking carefully for traps until they stopped abruptly. Their eyes went wide-eyed at the scene before them.

Two of them ran in the opposite direction after sharing some signals, with one falling to the ground helplessly. He disappeared in a flash.

Our team's assassin Sobith, had already drawn first blood.

The other guy, a Yoddha, started brawling with our teammate, punching and breaking walls, while Sobith kept dodging and jumping around the close-quarter walls of the corridor, avoiding all of the blows.

The enemy brawler smacked his fists against each other, sending waves of energy toward our nimble yoddha, who was unable to dodge it.

Falling back with his innards rattled, Sobith got up right before their yoddha punched a crater where he was lying.

Sobith's daggers and knives cut through his enemy's flesh, but that was not enough to stop the pulverizing attacks. Getting a kick to his ribs, Sobith dropped down, touching his left waist to activate one of my healing Aksharas.

That weird tap allowed Sobith to gather his bearings as his attacker stepped back, thinking he was activating a trap.

Suddenly, the brawler punched the air, sending our yoddha tumbling into the corridor away from the scene of battle. He sent out more and more punches, planting his feet to defend against the recoil, sending invisible air bursts right where our yoddha was.

I realized what Sobith was doing. There was a reason why he had appeared behind our fort's invaders, despite them passing through the same place without finding anything wrong.

A blatantly copied skill, but quite an important one for assassin-based builds.

As the brawler rushed towards our yoddha, who was struggling to get up, he stopped for a second to find his target dissolving in a pool of black tar.

Sensing something wrong, the enemy yoddha turned around, perceiving an energy disruption behind him. A bunch of authentication pulsing beads had suddenly appeared out of thin air in the direction he was now facing, away from our yoddha.

He sighed with a smile before getting beheaded and flashing away.

Our yoddha had reappeared from the pool of boiling shadows to backstab his enemy in the instant he had turned around, sensing the decoy.

The crowd went mad after the fight ended. We also joined in.

"Don't stop your hands!! This won't work every time! They'll now know that some beads are decoys." Jay scolded me from the side.

The enemy Rakshaks still kept tip-toeing forward while assuming a battle stance, careful not to step in any original 'authentication/activation beads' that were littering the floor.

Jay and I shared a hearty laugh. Human mind is fickle; it never wants to take risks.

We had created thousands of these 0.2-point pulsing energy beads and scattered them all over the fort, making them think there were traps all around the place.

The ones in the forest were all original, and our enemies surely must have encountered some while traversing. But here in the fort, most were duds.

It allowed Sobith to hunt without worrying about our own traps. The enemies might only think that he knows where the real trap activators are. They will be looking for patterns in Sobith's movements to find out how the actual traps are laid out.

It's hard to keep sanity when you see traps in front of you, like the sands on a beach, and an enemy that can easily navigate through them.

Our Assassin Yoddha attacked our enemies from behind while they were having second thoughts about going forward or backward.

The two enemy guys who had already fallen and flashed away to their substitute area were thinking quickly.

They might have attacked the fort from a different direction if our assassin hadn't ambushed them from behind.

By now, our Surakshak might have already entered the fort from where the enemies did. Anticipating that, our assassin collapsed into a pool of boiling shadows, emerging from the central end of the tunnel.

This was what his skill actually did. Short-range teleportation of living beings and non-living objects at pre-determined positions. It was a pain to set it up at different points in the castle.

The enemy Vaidya started releasing his condensed aura and kneaded it carefully. At the same time, their Surakshak turned to face ours, who slowly walked into the scene from the same direction where our enemies had infiltrated.

On the other screen, our Vaidya and Archit were already locked in a confrontation with their sole Dhanurdhar and their Kusa Clones.

Wait... The numbers aren't adding up. How did they manage to make a Kusa Clone that walks so perfectly?

"Shit. The other member with them is a Clone..." Jay muttered, realizing something while examining the third member of the enemy team inside our fort. "They brought a fucking C4 right inside."

"The shields we have put around our Fort- Chakra will hold up. Don't worry." I said, having confidence in our creations.

"Not if they put a whole three weeks' worth of explosives inside." He kept watching intently, "Now we have to devise a measure for tackling this. Other teams will also use it surely. We were too engrossed in having fun with our traps."

Our assassin must have understood what was happening. He returned to the main chamber where our protection objective and the Dhanurdhar were.

They started uninstalling the barricade-based energy blobs from where we had set them up and placed them in a direction where our enemy currently was.

Our Surakshak engaged in a fierce fight with theirs, foiling the activation of the Bomb twice.

He next found himself trapped between two energy walls that appeared on his two sides, separating the whole corridor into three sections, with him isolated within the middle one.

If they had Jay's activation or Relinquish Skill, we would have been done in already. It seems their Vaidya wasn't the one who made the bomb.

It must be the Dhanurdhar back in their fort who's been activating random explosions within their castle, trying to take down our two members.

Like my previous self, he had to be there in person to activate the bombs he had created himself.

The Kusa Clone suddenly lit up like a fluorescent light, signaling its activation.

"So this is how we'll lose the first match." Jay muttered, getting frustrated.

As the blast's energy tore through the northern part of the fort and the people fighting there while traveling gradually toward the center, it got blocked multiple times by the energy barricades that were activated one after another.

Our assassin looked around helplessly, then as a last ditch effort, broke off the pillar that held the objective chakra at its head, caught the Dhanurdhar who was with him, and teleported away to the southern end of the fort.

The blast dissipated after destroying half of the south-center corridor, not reaching the current position of our teammates.

In a flash, our Surakshak appeared beside us.

Confused whispers came from the crowds all around. We waited for the defeat message, but it never came even after two minutes.

"This will make things more complicated." Jay gave a mad laugh. "From the next match on, we might now have to find out where the chakra is even hidden..."

Leaving the chakra with our assassin, who had expended all his energy in the subsequent teleportations, the Dhanurdhar went out into the field to assist Archit and the Vaidya.

"Good job forcing them to activate the bomb right there. Any more closer to the south would have eliminated Sobith and Vratya." Jay consoled the Surakshak.

Still not having the information that the objective chakra can be relocated, the opponent's Dhanurdhar fought a futile 3v1 scenario while protecting their Fort-Chakra to get ultimately eliminated, sealing our first victory. The fact that he was afraid of blowing up the rest of the explosives he had prepared because it might take both him and the chakra out, constrained quite a number of his offensive options.

The teams who'll fight this team later will be in a huge load of trouble. If they have five more such Kusa Clones prepared for each of the teams they need to fight, they can end things in an instant.

We wrapped our arms around each other's shoulders in a circle after the other four members arrived and gave out a victory cheer.

Having only one member eliminated gave us bonus points that will help in case of tie-breakers.

The Angiras team protested fiercely, but they were turned away, saying they themselves narrowed their vision and thinking.

The objective was to protect the chakra. It never said that we couldn't remove it from the pedestal or the pedestal itself.

"Then we will simply detach it and move it around in our pockets!!" They debated.

"Don't come running again if you die first and eliminate your team without even giving them a fighting chance." The sages shooed them away. They got no chill.

Things thankfully worked for us this time, but it's going to get more challenging—five more games to go.

There will be a total of 21 or 7C2 games that will be played over seven days. In case there's a tiebreaker, the number of member deaths will be taken into account. The lesser, the better.

There won't be any extra games between the top 4 teams, like semifinals and finals. So, six matches is all we have in total.

"What should we do now?" Our Vaidya asked. "Things are going to get different from now on. People will treat this as a 5v5 deathmatch instead of trying to find out where the chakra is hidden." The Surakshak speculated.

"Or they can start blowing up whole forts, as Angiras did." I wondered.

"I think not everyone can create bombs like Angiras' Dhanurdhar. He's an expert in that. Like Jay is with traps. Every team has someone like that, who was chosen according to the theme, and the team is created around that. Since it was a castle, Jay was selected. If it had been something else, this whole team would have been different." Archit explained.

I took notes of everything, thinking it might be helpful thirteen years later. Hell.

"You want to go back and see how your friends are doing in the Utsaav? It will go on through this whole week, right?" The Assassin Sobith asked.

"Yeah. I can stream it from KalpaYaal if I'm curious. There's a lot of work to do here. Let's start with modifying and conducting maintenance on all your battle gears first. We need to replenish all the Aksharas that you used." I got back into serious working mode.

"They are great!!" Vratya, the Dhanurdhar said. "It's like having a personal Vaidya with us."

"It's only possible because me and Jay made it together. It will be a while until Relinquish expresses in my status as a skill. I can somewhat mimic the control transfer process, but it takes more energy and time to implement." I muttered, trying to act humble.

"Enough discussions. Let's go back to our training void and come up with plans." Jay ushered us away from the field that was modified for the event.

"That was a nice fight!!"

"We really enjoyed it."

"Sobhit, you rock!! Vashisth ruless!"

"Archit good going. Don't play with your food that much. End things in an instant."

Comments from the guys of our Gurukul came from different directions as we walked out with the retreating crowd.

Many came and shook hands or high-fived with me.

"Jay got a good disciple. We heard that both of you are required to set up the traps. Vashisth is in good hands for the future." Many ruffled my hair.

"You wanna stay in this section for the next few days? You can sleep in one of our rooms." My teammates suggested.

"Considering the amount of new things we need to make, sleeping is not an option right now. I'll consider it when I'm too tired." I mumbled, getting shy at their suggestion.

And they laughed seeing my expression.

"Let's go bring that trophy to Vashisth!!" Archit declared loudly inside the green training cube.

We started preparing for the next day as soon as we settled down.

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After running maintenance on my teammates' energy fogs: shield, heal, trap activators, and blooming beads, me and Jay created whatever was required for the strategy tomorrow.

I was not the only junior staying in the seventh standard section. There were some sixth graders too, who were part of other teams.

While having dinner with my seniors, I thought about what had happened in the last three weeks.

Saiyan had come back to Alik for school, but he refused to say anything. I Guess Kalpa has provided them with special training they can't disclose.

My rank slipped from 14 to 22 after the fair leveling week that all the other Rakshaks got.

It was the most productive week I've ever had. I was working full-time with Jay at that time.

This week, we came up with the concept of multipurpose battle fogs, and I created one for myself for the Siddhi System that was implemented the week after.

The Siddhi week was fun. I still had all my responsibilities: like going to Sarvajnana's and Vishwajeet's sessions and then working with Jay... But I still managed to fight enough times with my peers.

If you win against a higher-level guy, you'll get 10 points. Five points if won against a challenger of lower level. If you lose, you get only 2. Any experience is a positive experience, I guess. Since it is a win-win concept, people were fighting in droves everywhere.

Whenever we didn't have any classes, for example, during the afternoon for other Rakshaks, people would surround dimensional cubes where battles were going on.

Even the sages were having fun giving pointers after the fights and being judges.

People had come up with interesting concepts: mostly that they had learned from their families, but they were in no way even close to the skills of seventh standard guys I was practicing with.

I was given special training for one hour everyday by my seniors just in case I might have to go out into the field under some particular circumstances.

I opened the leaderboard for Siddhi and found I haven't been removed from my position yet.

It has become a habit of mine to check it time and again. I am also getting addicted to this KalpaYaal like the others.

Still, I felt a little proud of myself. I knew it wouldn't last long after the special treatment Rakshaks arrived, but being a second ranker gave me a pleasant feeling.

Without my humility activator Muladhara Chakra, I would have been on the seventh cloud.

I can't wait for Saiyan and his fellows to come back. I want to test my skills against them so badly. It's a shame that I can't fight with the first rank holder since he has a lower level than me, but he's bound to use his points to level up sometime or another.

In the section for Siddhi in KalpaYaal, it is written that 50 points are required per level from 21-30. One hundred points for each level from 31-40. It keeps increasing like that.

I now had a massive 270 points, with a 42-straight win streak.

I've had no challenges at all for the last few days. In comparison, the first ranker was still racking up wins somehow.

There was also a cooldown between consecutive fights. A short one if fought with a different guy, and a longer one if against someone you've already fought before.

Most fights were slaughters from my end. I remember only three or four instances where I had felt mildly threatened, especially by Dhanurdhars or Surakshaks.

Yoddhas dropped like flies trying to come near me, and sometimes Surakshaks could force their way through some of the damage, only to get blocked by my shield. There were two instances when a Surakshak broke my shield, that's all.

After strengthening my shield fog, everything was a breeze. People said that I was not doing it the correct way. Siddhi fights are 'supposed' to be fought head-on, but I concur.

I'll fight after you can disable my traps and my shield.

I have now spread around my blooming traps like undersea mines. If anybody approached me, it would activate from their touch.

They cuss me since they can't see my traps. If they could actually see my traps, their faces would be worth watching.

After the need to keep up a persistent connection, which was another concept taken from Jay's internet knowledge, again went away, and I required much less energy to maintain the fogs.

Technically, the energy to maintain the fogs came from the authentication beads on my body. Those were the only things I needed to replace after every session.

I had also made spares, for each type that I can also replace on the go.

All of this gave the illusion that I could maintain the barrier and traps for as long as I wanted.

People having levels lower than mine stopped challenging me, saying that it's boring to fight with me.

While the people above me treat me as a chore. They come and don't even try to win.

I realized I was isolating myself like this.

But it was good to see my friends coming to support me in most of the matches they knew about.

Dweep and Esha were in all of them as spectators. Esha came for her own learning, and Dweep came because he was Dweep.

I made sure never to miss his matches and gave him pointers if the battles happened before 6.30 pm.

I would sometimes show Dweep's recorded videos to Sarvajnana to get his input. Since Saiyan and Anik were doing their own thing, Dweep and I tried to stay in touch whenever we found time.

We also went to Anik's and Jhanvi's matches at the beginning, but they asked us not to. Apparently, it makes them quite conscious, making them prone to messing up.

I send a best-of-luck message to them whenever I find their matches listed after that.

"Go to sleep now." Sobith tapped my shin with his toes while lying on the floor beside me.

Yes, we sleep on the very asanas we meditate—no mattresses for us.

He then leaned closer to see what I was watching.

"That's impressive for a fifth standard Surakshak." He said while watching Dweep's video in today's Utsaav, "He's promising. Being able to hold off beasts who circle you from all directions is tough."

"These wild dogs are no match for him. He's taken out Kaalbheriyas when he wasn't even level 10."

"Hmm... He looks cool-headed. It's a must for Surakshaks. They are the most important member of the team, no matter what anyone says. In a battle, make sure they are the ones who get most of your healing." He advised.

He suddenly looked worried. "Are you sure you're okay with this? You might not even get a chance to enter the field. Having helped us enough to prepare, no one would say anything if want to go back and participate in the Utsaav."

"Archit was asking me the same thing. My mentors were correct. What I learned from you guys was a hundred times more important than anything I could have experienced there. But..." I smirked, "In case you guys don't need me around, you can tell me directly."

"It's not like that. We were just wondering whether we could give you something in return that can be considered on par with a Blessing. We might not tell you directly, but we loved having you around for the last few weeks." He smiled brightly.

"Well, you just did." I laughed.

"That's because I'm not shy like the others." He protested.

"Sobith."

"Yeah?"

"You were today's MVP. I'm sure I'll use that decoy technique in some way or another. It was inspirational."

"Thanks." He smiled, looking up at the ceiling, "I'll be closing my eyes now. Make sure to take enough rest." He yawned while turning away.

After Dweep's defending against multiple opponents event, I went through what Anik and Saiyan did.

The Seven have returned for the Utsaav, it seems.

They were now around the levels of 38 or 39 after their special training. Kalpa is in too much of a rush.

The Yoddhas had to cut three dummies placed side by side in a single strike. The Dahnurdhars had to hit ten targets within 15 seconds. It basically looked like the Olympics but for specially trained children. I have no idea how to describe it, to be honest.

Anik managed to hit seven targets. Jhanvi 9? Whoa! Her bow looked like a compound one, with lots of attachments and all. Since she was the one who took down the Makara dungeon boss, Ardhaguna might have given her one of the highest-level items.

I was this close to opening my reward weapon box after watching her performance.

I could feel my fingers itching. Fuck it, let's open that box.

Lying on my stomach, I brought out the reward box that looked like a watch case which supposedly contained a weapon.

Wait... Why is it the size of a fist?

Were their boxes also like this? When they opened it, did something of a bigger size pop out from inside?

Sighing out loud, I slowly opened the box to find a dull black skipping stone inside.

It started shining as soon as I brought it out of the box.

I instantly understood what it was doing. It was sucking up Shakti from the Rekha that runs through the dorm rooms.

From black, it slowly turned to dark red, then orange, yellow, green... Finally, ending in dark purple. How long did it take? My heart was racing as I watched the whole process. It was hella fast.

If I think what it is, it will be crazy.

No shit, the reward for getting a record is no joke, especially with a high contribution.

No wonder Jhanvi could take down nine targets while others ranged between 4 to 6.

Now I have to know how much Shakti it can hold. Or if it is even Shakti or not.

Connecting the stone with one of my Tethers after depleting all the energies within my body, I started absorbing whatever energy was inside.

My Gods... In my Status, I saw my Kundalini rising from 0 to 8 within five to seven minutes.

I used all of that to create a blossoming arrow.

Repeat.

Repeat...

It gave me 8x3 points of Kundalini in one go before emptying.

A crazy smile burst out on my lips. This must be a refined Chakra of some higher living being.

Is this a bribe from Kalpa? But it's something that was created by Ardhaguna...

Who cares!! I can now utilize 24+8 points of Kundalini in one go without breaking the stream of energy release. Thus allowing me to create items worth that same amount of energy!

I'll only have to use it at a rate such that my 8 points are never depleted by releasing more than I am receiving from the gem.

This is like a power bank. Giving me energy when energy sources are not around. Perfect for a Vaidya.

Excitement was bursting inside my chest. My hands were already acting up, wanting to make something!!

I sat up and ran to Jay's room.

Having a continuous stream of 32 energy will open up a lot of avenues for our team strategies.

"What is it... My sleep had just arrived!!" He scolded me with a disinterested tone.

I showed him the gem. "Reward for my fastest first dungeon clear record. It can filter and hold 24 points of Kundalini!!! We can do so many..."

"Come tomorrow, idiot. My mental fortitude is not as high as yours... I can barely stay awake... Now go away... Fuckk!! The ideas!! They are rushing in... Haahhh, let's go. We'll sleep in the void if it comes to that." He sighed with a twinkle in his eyes.

I knew him well enough to know he wouldn't be able to sleep anymore after getting a glimpse of this.

"We can sleep tomorrow after the match." I grinned.

He grabbed his woolen white jacket and walked out with me.

Wait, why don't we have those??

"Do they give this jacket when it gets colder?" I asked, eyeing it.

"No. They give jack shit. My girlfriend knitted this from the fur of Shaila-Shringi when we went to hunt monsters that were bothering the Naga-Sannyasis living in the caves around Kailash Parvat. It's a huge mountain antelope sheep thingy. Crazy memory." He smiled to himself.

"Wait, you guys adventured around Satya? Outside the Ashrama?" I asked, clearly getting interested.

He looked at me stone-faced. "Well ofcourse, you too will get lots of things to do from the second part of sixth standard. They'll be like small requests of the people living around the Ashrama. It's quite fun to go out and see what's lying outside of these mountain pockets." He said, examining the peaks of the mountains that surrounded us.

"I sometimes wonder whether we are actually sitting inside a volcano crater. How can every section have the same layout? And of the same circular shape. It's mind-boggling." He wondered to himself. "But again, there's hardly any volcanoes around here..."

We entered the green void allocated to us after two minutes of walking.

"Should we make bombs now? Like the ones that gave us so much trouble today?" I suggested.

"I never studied how bombs actually work. I have seen it from the outside, but the reactions going on inside are hard to implement without having a clear idea." He apologized, "But we can try other things. There's some that's coming to my mind right now. Let me check the gem first."

His face went dark after taking it in his hands.

"We'll need to come up with things you can actually implement. I can't seem to extract anything from inside it." He said, clearly feeling a bit down.

"Should we go back and sleep instead?" We stared at each other, our faces painted with disappointment.

"We can't go back after we went out like we discovered something that could get us a Nobel prize. They must be thinking we are cooking up something really good here." He gave out a weird laugh, "My pride won't allow me to go back. Let's think up some ideas and simplify them. With this amount of Kundalini, even simple things can be dangerous. More Kundalini is always the answer!!"

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