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Rakshak of Kalpa

*Slow-Burn, Progression-Fantasy* I have added the number of words beside the chapter name, so divide it by 1.5k and take the quotient as the number of chapters released in mass. Synopsis: The World is currently in the Kali Yuga, the fourth and final era before its renewal. With corruption slowly tainting their fabric of existence, degrading their morals as they stumbled through the ages, humanity now awaits its purification at the hands of divine entities. Will they fight back? Or accept their Eradication? Dhruva, who arrived at a Gurukul, oblivious of his roots to the mystic world, found himself caught in the crossfire of an eternal conflict between Devatas and Asuras. Having his view of this world suddenly turned upside down, he now has to rearrange his priorities and swiftly adapt to the new deadly environment with only three lives in hand. But fate has different things in mind. Setting its wheels in motion, seven young bloods from prominent ancient families were suddenly selected, in a secret plot to preserve humanity. Trying to find balance between defending the World from the Asuras below and being a canon fodder for the higher beings and Devatas above, humanity now has to bide for time, so that it can accumulate enough power by delving into the dungeons guarded by Temples. Where does the end of this journey lie? And who should they even fight against? They must now wade through a perilous journey filled with sacrifices and helplessness, struggling to keep their loved ones safe in a world that's falling apart. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx This story will take time to pick up its pace, with the starting arcs meant for establishing the world and its systems, having action sprinkled between slices of academy life, little bit of romance and a whole lot of training. At this moment in time, there's about 210k(will be updated continuously) words in total, so it will provide a good enough binge for a night. I'm looking forward to your comments and critiques, so I hope you have fun reading my story. Thanks for your time. Updates: Probably every three days. Sometimes the juices flow naturally, and sometimes I need to squeeze my emotions hard enough. But they will usually have more than 4k words considering the recent trend. Disclaimer: This work is like my zeroth draft to finalize the structure of the story I have thought about. I was hoping to get feedback along the journey but well... Later things will be made much more concise and will start at a different point in subsequent drafts. Thanks to those who are willing to see how this world shapes up.

Honeyy_CoughSyrup · Fantasy
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72 Chs

0.1 Currently introduced systems:

Maya: Omnipresent force of the world, which God Class beings can manipulate. Usually responsible for erecting barriers between the Lokas and creating illusions. It is very unpredictable and still has a lot of secrets to uncover.

Lokas: The three main dimensions. Swarga or Heaven, where the Gods reside; Prithvi or Marta, where humans live, which again is divided into two using a barrier of Maya; and lastly, Patala Loka or the Netherworld, where the Asuras were imprisoned after the Samudra Manthan incident. There are sub-dimensions within Swarga and Patala too, like Prithvi, which is currently divided into two: Satya(True) Marta, where Shakti is present, and Alik(Fake) Marta, where it is not, while Kalpa maintains the barrier of Maya to keep Shakti from entering the Alik Marta. Alik Marta is a mirrored reality of Satya Marta devoid of any divinity concepts.

Shakti Rekhas: Responsible for circulating Shakti, divine energy that originated from the primordial Goddess after her sacrifice. Fifty-one pieces of her body fell all over the Lokas, creating Peeths(energy stations) that pump Shakti into the Rekhas, which are then distributed all over Brahmand, the aggregation of all Lokas. It can be absorbed by an awakened mortal body directly from the Rekhas, by the sap vessels within their body provided by Kalpa Vriksha, the world-preserving tree.

Kundalini: The internal energy of living beings, which is generated within their bodies using different methods depending on the species. Human beings use their awakened chakra points to filter the Shakti, collected from Shakti Rekhas, for creating their own Kundalini. It takes on the color of the chakra responsible for its creation.

Prana: Life energy, which can be converted directly into Kundalini. It has a wide range of purposes not yet adequately known by the characters. It can be recovered by consuming life energy from other living beings. It is now known that invoking incarnations of Gods or Divine Missiles requires this Prana energy to be exchanged by the user.

Chakra: Dormant organs within the body of human beings that can store Shakti, absorbed from the Rekhas, while also being able to convert it into Kundalini. There are seven chakras, each representing one color of the rainbow and one attribute each. Details will be revealed later. Dhruva currently has the red-colored lowermost chakra, which has an earth attribute. Each consecutive chakra, when awakened, increases the amount of kundalini within the body by two times.

When you have one chakra, your kundalini will be 2. 4 kundalini total for two chakras, likewise 8, 16, 32, 64, and 128 when all seven chakras are awakened.

Chakras all require some conditions to awaken. They are like stops in a person's journey to become a better individual who's in control of all aspects of their personality, ultimately gaining Moksha, true enlightenment in the end. In Kali Yuga, despite awakening all their chakras, people don't seem to attain Moksha, which is creating quite a concern among the upper echelons of Manava society.

Gurukul: Schools of learning established in the Alik Marta for descendants of Rakshaks. They provide a gateway for young Rakshaks to transmigrate into Satya Marta. Total 7(3 for boys, 3 for girls, and one coed for students with unique traits) in number, situated in different parts of the country. All are named after the Saptarishis. Is there a specific reason to name them like this?

Bhavana: Abodes for different classes. Every Gurukul has eight Bhavanas; the names are the same across the gurukuls, denoting the immortal responsible for teaching the class currently residing in the Ashrama section under the jurisdiction of the said Immortal.

Ashrama: School in the Satya Marta where all the students from different Gurukuls congregate. Has Eight sections, each containing a class. So, one section contains all the students of the same class across all the gurukuls. Has a huge Banyan tree at the center. Training grounds and sages' quarters in the north; girls' dormitories and their bathroom stalls in the west; dorms and stalls for boys in the east; Dining Hall, shooting range, dairy and chicken farm in the south from top to bottom in the same order. Has a boundary created out of dense jungles in the shape of a circle with the Banyan tree in the center. The waterfall and the pool are on the southeast of this circular area, nearer to the mountain slope that one can reach after crossing the jungle. The secret training cave is in the direction between the south and the pool.

Vimana: Pyramid-shaped anti-gravity vehicles that run with the power of tonal frequencies. The Architect God Vishwakarma designed it long back. After witnessing how the Gods used these vehicles, the Manavas associated them with the House of Gods, thus constructing Temples in their likeness. Now, copies of the real thing have been reverse-engineered and manufactured by the Manavas, often used with the power of Kundalini that the people riding in it offer to the tonal engines.

Kingdoms of Satya: Satya is divided into seven kingdoms right now. Each 'supposedly' has a revered family presiding over as their advisors. The royal bloodlines are descended from two of the Navagrahas: Surya and Chandra. The seven families have either directly descended from or been given blessings by the rest of the seven Navagrahas. Somi was born in the Sapta family of the Kuru empire in the north and northwest. Their family's curse has robbed them of their advisor position in the royal court. No one wants a puppet of other kingdoms within their midst. Shreya and her family come from the Ayodhya kingdom in the north and some parts of the central east. Her family takes care of both the libraries at Takshashila and Nalanda.

Navagrahas: Surya(Sun), Chandra(Moon), Vudha(Mercury), Shukra(Venus), Mangal(Mars), Brihaspati(Jupiter), Shani(Saturn), Rahu and Ketu(Shadow Planets). Their positions during the birth of living beings determine their fate. Each represents some virtues and aspects of human life and has a gemstone representing them.

Items and spells of resurrection: Amrita, which the Gods hoard in Swarga Loka. Highest potency.

Sanjeevani herb: A mythical herb from the Himalayas that needs a proper preparation method to resurrect people who have died very recently. Very Low potency.

Mrita Sanjeevani Mantra: Spell gifted to Shukracharya, Guru of the Asuras, by Lord Shiva. This spell was later learned and shared with the Devatas by Kacha, the son of Brihaspati. High potency.

Derived methods from these three forms have given birth to the techniques used by Manavas for their resurrection. But, they explicitly limit the number of times the spell can be used on an individual. Their potency varies depending on the methods and quality of materials used. The royalties of Satya are known to have more lives than the Rakshaks of Ashrama. But more lives come with more risks and penalties.

Temple Dungeons: The secrets of these dungeons are not yet known to the characters. Every iteration is based on two of the seven elements of the Universe(Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space, Ether, and Cosmic Energy). Once you leave a dungeon, you can't return back to the same one. One needs to decide to leave a dungeon using their status consciously. So, if you're knocked out, your team either needs to leave you there or protect you until you regain consciousness. Time in the dungeons seems to move faster than Satya, making people speculate whether it's actually located in the Netherworld (Patala Loka).

Curses: Triggered on specific conditions. The quality of the soul is taken into account when a curse is cast. It is a common saying that a cow won't die by the curse of a vulture. There seems to be a cause and effect associated with curses that goes beyond magic and is thus applicable even inside Alik barriers. Most curses to date have been cast by people who have been deeply hurt, insulted, or have lost something precious. These negative feelings are the building blocks of all curses. Ordinary people are often riddled with low-level curses that they accumulate by unknowingly harming the people around them in their day-to-day lives. The more you suffer from curses, the greater your resistance to it develops over time.

Time in Lokas: Calculation of time between the Lokas is challenging, and people have developed somewhat approximate measures between each of them. In the topmost Loka, the whole Universe is created and destroyed within a single second. It becomes gradually faster as one goes below. In the lowermost Loka, where the Nagas reside, it is speculated that 100,000 years can pass by the time a day in Marta is even completed. 

Moksha: After living beings gain enlightenment of their true nature, they reach a state where they remember all their memories even after the cycle of time starts anew, thus leaving the cycle of Rebirth in a way. The Beings who have attained Moksha primarily reside in the upper Lokas. They gradually accumulate their knowledge over the multiple Renewals. The beings in the lower Lokas are hence given much more time to explore themselves for the sake of attaining Moksha, compared to the ones who have already achieved it. Unfortunately, they use all this time to indulge in their interests and pleasures.

Traits: Physical manifestations of one's abilities passed down through heredity. Over time, they have become one with the soul and are now on the same level as a curse, not affected by the absence of Divinity. Traits and Curses seem to have a soul-based causality, which is studied vigorously by ambitious Manavas in kingdom-funded Institutions. Rumors have spread that a specific institution in the Kuru kingdom has successfully developed a way to transfer traits from one person to another. After the person who designed it went missing, the method also disappeared. Maybe the same person could have modified the technique to alleviate curses. Who knows?

Blessings and Authorities: Blessings are provided by Deities and some Devatas. Constrained to the person involved, unlike Traits. They have a minimal chance of being turned into traits. High-Level Deities and the Trinity can provide authorities. Some of these have a low-level chance of being converted to traits. And some are temporary, only offered for the sake of fulfilling some role assigned by Fate or to restore the Order of this World.

To be continued.

Incase you have queries on terms I have already used but forgot to add here, please comment.

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