Larceny

Aman entered the arcade drawing a lot of strange looks. He ignored them. He was used to it by now. Walking up to the reception, he showed his VR card to the receptionist whose eyes widened in surprise.

The receptionist was internally surprised as only very influential people had this card. How did this type of person have a card? He felt doubtful whether this was a new fad to set themselves apart from everyone who was trying to max their genes.

Aman didn't bother to stick around to correct his misconception and just walked into the lobby of the VR area where a staff member met him and took him to the hall where the actual soul VR was.

Spirit Dimension was a very bulky machine and it had a high stress factor on its users so the time limit for a session was one hour.

First his card was registered to him with soul matching technology which was the most secure thing now and his credentials were set on it.

Then he was asked to change into a hospital gown specially made for the VR machine and he was put into the pod.

There, two metallic plates were attached to the side of his head and the machine started.

His world went dark.

Soon, there was light again. Looking around he saw that he was in a all white room with no ventilation or any sort of distinguishing feature.

Looking down at his body he found that it was a plain white humanoid figure with no features. Slowly, he moved his hands but he felt disconnected and clumsy.

He thought to Nama, 'Are you there?'

[Yes. The sensors aren't strong enough to detect me.]

Aman nodded and waddled around for a bit until suddenly, he felt a tingling and looked down to see that his height and weight was changing and coming closer to the actual real life value.

Over the next 15 minutes, his featureless humanoid body changed until it was an exact replica of his real life body.

He did several exercises and stretches and saw that the performance was accurate as well. He was very impressed.

[I underestimated the complexity of dreamwalking. It seems that I need to learn from this machine. I need to jack into it and copy its data.]

"How will you do that?"

[We need to wait for an opportunity.]

Soon, a mechanical voice rang out.

<Aman Batra, welcome to your first time in the Spirit Dimension. We will need to fully assess your soul potential for the record. Although, as this is a mechanical reading, it will be quite approximate in nature, it will be enough to suggest a cultivation direction. Ready?>

"Yes."

Then several pictures appeared in front of him on a floating virtual screen. It was the postures of the Surya Namaskar. The voice instructed him to perform the exercises and he ran through the whole set five times before it was satisfied.

<Your Heaven and Third eye chakra are more developed than the rest. Your heart chakra is the weakest followed by your sacral chakra. Soul density in the first tier.>

Along with its words, many screens popped up with explanations for the terms used and the basics of the soul. Aman already knew the stuff but still read again to both brush up and so that anyone monitoring him wouldn't find anything fishy.

Aman asked Nama. 'Why couldn't you do this and tell me my exact readings, you are supposed to be the most advanced biological nano-photon computer.'

[I have the hardware but the software is not there. That is one more reason why I need to jack into this computer. Tech is forever advancing and I need an update.]

<The Spirit Dimension system suggests that the participant chooses one of the two following starting cultivation methods. Yoga or Heavenly connection. The user is not suitable to cultivate qi.>

[Choose the Mesopotamian Cultivation. I think I know how to jack into this thing.] said Nama.

When Aman made his choice, the other options vanished and a screen with the details of the method appeared. He read it and it was basically the same as the one he was using. He just needed to concentrate his soul to his crown and then find the point where the separation from outside his body was the thinnest.

By thin it didn't mean the thickness of the actual skull but the point where the soul leaked out from the body in minute quantities.

Every time someone thought, more nano-photon were produced but that didn't mean that everything was still stored in the soul of the individual or it would result in old people having high soul density.

That wasn't the case as the nano-photon leaked out at almost the same rate as they were produced. The nano-photon which leaked went and joined the dreamland.

That was why the dreamland was affected by the collective thoughts of the sentient creatures in the world.

After Aman easily found his crown's weakest point known as the Heavenly cord, or the crown chakra, he spread his sensation out along with the departing stream of nano-photons.

Just like the time controlling ants, he stretched his mental grasp towards the group of nano-photons that the system had generated for him as a target. His job was to affect the target with his own nano-photons if he managed to do it the target would be shifted away.

The farther it was, the more difficult. That was why the maximum distance he could reach would be the measure of his talent.

Soon Nama's voice came. [Good. I got hold of the system AI using your heavenly cord. Now, you do the test. Don't hold back as this is truly your talent and I have no effect on it. I will go and get what I need from the AI.]

Aman nodded and continued the testing. His final result was ten metres. That too because he had prior practice controlling the ants but without Nama's help shutting off his senses, his injured soul created a problem again.

<Result: 10m. Rank for equivalent soul density. A Rank. Due to soul injury, the result is erratic. Final record. B rank.>

<Now. Please choose a soul amplification and soul sealing method.>

The previous Cultivation methods were all basically ability cultivation methods. Like the one he used to control ants was for training the use of the Heaven chakra.

Similarly, each chakra had corresponding abilities and separate cultivation methods for them. Like the Third eye chakra had a cultivation method for using soul sight on outside targets like the selector for Aman's test Sushil Mohanty had used.

It also had cultivation methods for creating a nascent divinity.

Then combining the two, Divine Vision.

The heart chakra would have the ability to stimulate the potential of the body like the man who had died and given Aman the soul sensor had used.

These were ability cultivation methods.

But how to increase the soul density? First. The leakage had to be stopped. That was soul sealing.

Then one had to stimulate their thoughts and their body to produce more nano-photons. That was soul amplification.

These three types of cultivation could be mixed and matched from the techniques of the three Ancient Civilizations. They didn't interfere too much with each other.

So, the Surya Namaskar was a soul amplification technique.

While, acupressure could be used for soul sealing.

These days, Aman had sealed his soul and practised the Surya Namaskar regularly. His soul had grown a lot.

Of course, the soul had to be moved appropriately along with the exercises and the acupressure for them to work otherwise, in so many years, many yogis and acupressure experts would have become soul warriors accidentally.

As Aman completed the tests, Nama was connected to the AI and stealing data.

But, the side effect of this data stealing was that the data had to go somewhere and that somewhere was Aman's brain. This caused quite a bit of stress and the system detecting this aborted the session 15 minutes early.

When he came out and performed all the formalities and left the arcade after another round of tests to see what the problem was, he was exhausted.

They had finally concluded that the system was overloading his brain somehow. He had been asked to take a break of one week before he tried again. Meanwhile they would see if there was a problem with the system.

Returning home, Aman threw his bag away and flopped down on his bed.

Taking out another energy bar from his pocket, he stuffed his face with it. With the way Nama guzzled calories, he had to eat over twenty of those every day. He was sick of the taste.

"Did you get the data?"

[Yes. The full thing. The AI was defenceless in front of me and I entered it and took what I wanted.]

"Stop! Why does that sound so wrong? Just tell me whether we have enough info to explore the dreamland tonight."

[Yes. We do.]