9 A glimpse of a soul

Aman was excited. This might just be the alternative opportunity he had been looking for.

The Indian Institute of Eugenics was the pinnacle of educational opportunity.

If he was selected for the Institute, he could cut short the plans of his restoration by almost four years.

The institute was the training ground for those who aimed at surpassing the limitations of humanity via their cultivation of their soul and their genes.

Joining the top Engineering institute was all well and good. Getting a high paying job and saving up to restore his genes was fantastic.

But how could that compare to the Institute that had the basic goal of helping you transcend humanity?

They would surely ensure that he reached 10 in all his stats for that was the basic prerequisite for breaking the fetters of the human body.

If you weren't at the peak, how would you surmount?

Aman clenched his fist. If he was selected, the first thing he would do would be to throw away the incriminating Soul sensor into a dumpster when he got home.

Then he wouldn't have to rack his brains about being stealthy and avoiding whatever organization was chasing the dying warrior.

The entire section filed out onto the school playground where they were joined by the students of the other three sections of the class.

For ease of teaching, the 200 strong student body for each class was divided into four 50-member sections. Now, everyone had been gathered so the expert could get his job done in one go.

Jute mats that were used for practising yoga during the physical education period had been spread on the playground over the smoothened area which on ordinary days served as the hundred-meter race track for the track and field club.

Everyone mingled and quickly took their seats with their friends. Excitement was clear on their faces.

The Indian Institute of Eugenics didn't conduct entrance exams. The only way to enter was via the recommendations of the experts sent to the schools.

It was a pure test of talent.

The meditation method that was used to test them didn't depend on the strength of the soul, only on the aptitude.

Even if some junior of an influential family learnt of some meditation method in advance and strengthened his soul, it wouldn't help.

In fact, since the soul could be damaged by starting practice too early, their aptitude might even drop.

Also, which expert would be sent to which school was totally random so bribery was too difficult to achieve.

Therefore, the selections were considered to be an epitome of meritocracy.

Since Aman had missed the class yesterday, he was a little less informed on what they had to do but it was something he had read about before.

The meditation method, like all such methods, strongly penalized any distraction. The better you could focus on the method the more effective it would be.

Concentration had always been one of his strong suits and he was pretty confident that he could emerge from his classmates.

Taking a deep breath to calm himself and exhaling all doubt along with the impure air, he closed his eyes, crossed his legs and began his meditation.

Following the spoken instructions of the expert which seemed to reverberate in their very souls, he turned his mind inwards to his soul sensor.

With its aid, he perceived his soul. It was like a shimmering nebula that occupied the interior of his body, filling every corner.

Some parts of it were static and some parts, like the pinpricks associated with the blood cells in his vessels circulated around his body along with them.

It was like looking at a time-lapse movie of a galaxy cluster revolving.

Different people associated different senses to their soul sensor. As the sixth sense organ and an artificial one, the human brain had no way to process its inputs.

Therefore, it did the next best thing, it adapted one of the five existing senses to the soul sensor.

Usually, it was done automatically, but during the implantation process, this could also be modified and a preferred sense chosen.

Aman like the majority of the people perceived his soul by way of his vision.

It was a phenomenon known as soul sight.

It meant that he would 'see' souls. There were variations to this too. Some saw souls as colourful auroras, some aw them as a solid mass of light while some like Aman saw his soul as a galaxy.

Others smelt, heard, tasted or felt the soul. In other words, nano-photons took as many shapes and forms as the people who perceived them.

This effect gave credence to the proverb, "Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder."