34 Thoughtless Words

The world turned silent, monochrome and gained a dimension. It was as if Aman had been a stick figure drawn on a sheet of paper, living in his 2D world then a God had reached out and plucked him out of the plane and he could suddenly see everything. At once.

The first time this had happened when he had tried to test Divine Vision, he had passed out from sensory overload. Thankfully, the hastily cobbled together ability hadn't left any permanent damage to his soul and for the price of some transient pain, taught him some caution.

With how often Nama had been helping switch his senses on and off, the previously subconscious actions had become a sort of instinct and he could now achieve it even without the hibernating AI's help. Thus, when he had activated Divine Vision, he had cut off all of his senses except vision and even for that he had curtailed his ability to see in colour, reducing the load on his brain as far as possible.

Yet, the strange state of omniscience still caused him to reel back as the oddly distorted images hit him.

In this state, obstacles meant little as the inside and outside of a room was the same to him. The only limit to his perception was the distance. He could see everything in the radius of a mile around him. Outside it, his perception returned a blank. But, for his purposes, it was enough.

Focusing on the pandal across the street, he tried to locate any suspicious areas in or around it. He didn't have to search very hard. His eyes widened as he noticed that there was a large room underground, right below where the idol was placed in the pandal. Concentrating harder, he noticed three tunnels leading away from the underground room. Just as he was about to trace the tunnels back to their origin, his vision swayed.

His ability cut off and the world returned to normal. Losing control of his senses, colours, smells and sounds assaulted him as they rushed back in waves. The world seemed to spin as a strong wave of nausea hit him and he had to stabilize himself with his hands on the railing.

Shakily, he sank to the ground and buried his head between his knees like he had seen people do when there was turbulence during a flight. This expedient measure to combat airsickness seemed to help as the nausea slowly retreated, leaving a throbbing headache in its stead.

He sucked in deep breaths and exhaled. At his level, using such advanced abilities was simply asking for trouble. Reaching into his hoodie, he pulled out an energy bar and stuffed his face with it. After the third, he felt like gagging at the very taste of them. After awakening his soul sensor, he had eaten way too many of them. Tucking away a half-eaten bar into his hoodie, he decided he needed proper food.

But before that, he thought of what he had learnt. Apparently, Sushil had been right in his suspicions of the pharmaceutical business tycoon. Raunak Bose was clearly involved in shady dealings. Dealings that justified digging tunnels and a room out from under the public park and then constructing a pandal and conducting a Durga Puja above it. Aman had no idea what the man's motive was, but that wasn't something he needed to worry about.

What he needed was a justifiable excuse for his discovery of the covert underground room so he could inform Sushil about it and collect his points.

After all, he couldn't just say, "Hey, I used the mythical ability, Divine Vision, to scope the area out." That would be a one-way ticket to an interrogation or worse, a lab table.

His phone vibrated, breaking him out of his contemplation. He took it out and unlocked it. It was Ananya calling. Accepting, he put it against his ear as he leaned his head back against the railing of the rooftop. "Hello?"

"Are you done? I checked out the pandal. No leads, though. I'm at the food stalls, when will you be here?"

Aman glanced over at the teeming crowd lining up to enter the pandal, yet she had managed to gain entrance within – he checked the time – fifteen minutes? Really, status came in handy everywhere. "I'm done. I'll be there shortly. Buy me some food from the stalls."

Her indignant voice rang out of the speakers, "Hey! What do you take me fo-" He disconnected the call and put the phone away. He didn't know why he was being so rude to her – oh, who was he kidding? Of course, he did. Her existence reminded him of the unfairness of society. While people like him had to sell their genes in desperate straits, people like her, with status and background capitalized on that vulnerability to reach perfection.

He shook his head to clear his mind. Be that as he may, he was behaving irrationally. In a sense, she was his patron. Maintaining a good relationship with her was of paramount importance. Antagonizing her because of an emotional tantrum wasn't the smartest of moves. The repercussions of using the taxing technique was getting to him.

And, she hadn't done anything wrong... unless being born to a rich household was a crime.

He got to his feet, swaying slightly as he regained his balance before getting off the roof, locking the gate behind him.

By the time he reached the entrance to the apartment complex again, he had stabilized his condition. Signing out, he jostled through the crowds towards the area where the food stalls were set up. it didn't take long for him to spot Ananya. She was really hard to miss, what with the way the crowd seemed to flow automatically around her, subconsciously giving way to her aura.

He remembered Nama remarking that she probably practiced the art of qi cultivation. More specifically, an art focused on the lower dantian. Even before soul cultivation was in vogue, the phenomenon where someone who was in a position of high weight would have a formidable aura had been noticed. It would feel as if they were larger than life, their presence an almost substantive thing that made them immediately noticeable when they stepped into a meeting hall, making their words more persuasive and easily earning them the respect of others. According to the AI, qi cultivation mainly involved cultivating this aura of command or qi. It was the cultivation method of the Ancient Chinese Civilization Emperor lineage.

In fact, the soul pressure that he had experienced before was a technique that weaponized this aura. As such, it was also known as qi pressure.

From the frown on Ananya's face, she wasn't in the best of moods. When Aman neared her, she noticed, her eyes flashing angrily.

"Here!" she said as she pushed a paper wrapped parcel into his chest. As he reflexively caught it, she whirled around and strode away, leaving him standing there with his mouth half-open in the first syllable of his apology.

He snapped his mouth shut and looked down at the packet in his bosom. Unwrapping it, the mouth-watering scent of chicken pakoras wafted up to his nose, causing his stomach to growl in approval. She had bought him food after all.