Suvi and the rest returned to the main hall to rest and recover. The attack they had received left bruising and pain, but nothing serious. They were also given leave to explore the ground floor and the grounds outside.

The woman was walking ahead on the lotus leaves back to the silver lotus, “Call me Saras, I prefer that to my full name or any honorifics.”

“Saras, why not Sara?”

She stopped and turned to look at him, a curious look on her face. Then she broke into a wide grin. “I like it. You may call me Sara. It feels like a new me will pass on while the old faded away long ago.”

Rudra was dumbfounded. He was still processing that she didn’t care that he’d effectively killed her, and now this. He followed her quietly.

Once they stood on the lotus, she touched one of its petals and a complex pattern lit upon its surface. The area around the pond appeared to disintegrate and form again, at the corner of a huge square hall. The lotus leaves formed a path to a corner, pointing into the room. A large square platform dominated the room in the centre. It was 100 gaz long on each side and was about a foot high. Three sides were lined with racks and shelves. One side was covered with shelves holding crystals, slabs, scrolls, and books. One side with shelves and racks holding armour and the last side held a variety of weapons. Wavy, hazy curtains hid away rooms arranged along the fourth wall. The decor was eclectic, some parts were rustic, some futuristic but overall it was minimalist with muted colours.

“I will need some time to set up the stasis field, and then we will start your lessons. Feel free to ask questions, even later.”

“How are you not angry at me? How are you alive? Why were you imprisoned in your own home? What was that …”

“Give me time to answer as you ask.”

After he settled, she continued, “I disagreed with those in power and tried to take that power myself. Specifics don’t matter. I was imprisoned because killing me would have been impossible without incurring unacceptable losses and I was still useful to them.”

As she spoke she kept moving around the room, opening panels, powering circuits inscribed in the walls and floor.

“I created the stasis field you saw me in. I created this sword.”, she threw the sword at him and smiled as he caught it by the hilt.

“Don’t think that I am not dying. The sword destroyed my heart and lungs beyond healing. Even at my level, this means death. Then again, at my level I can… cheat.”, she grinned, “I have twenty-four hours.”

“You created the stasis field, but…”

“Before the Collectorate fell, there were guards stationed here. My students could visit. Towards the end all were recalled, and I was alone. The energy vortex you saw was created to suppress me, to oppose my use of shakti. By creating a stasis field with suppressive effects, I could trick the vortex into powering the field. The last two million years were but a few moments for me.”

As she finished speaking, she also finished what she was doing. Patterns lighted up around the floor and on the walls. Shimmering walls of light extended to cover the walls, floors, and ceiling of the room.

“This stasis field is different. It is powered by me and will give us four days inside for a few moments lost outside of it. It will cost eighteen hours of my remaining time.”

“Why?”

“Because I will be in the field with you and the yantras powering the energy vortex self-destructed since I am effectively dead. With my levels and shakti reserves, even if I am dying and my reserves are falling, the stasis field needs a lot of energy. If it was just you, this could have lasted seventy-two years.”

“Not that why. Why?”

She sighed. “I am a teacher, above all else, that will always be true. You may not realise it, but you are here to be my student.”

He stood silent, looking up at her, puzzled. His Guru on Earth would probably have done the same for him, but he’d trained with him for ten years. They had grown to be more than student and teacher. But not on the first day they met, without even knowing each other.

She was looking down on him when her smile turned to a frown. “This won’t do at all. No, no, it is not acceptable.”

“Uh… what?”

“I can’t keep looming over you like some monster from the eleventh abyss. You won’t be able to appreciate my cuteness, hotness and beauty. You will definitely not crush on me.”

“WHAAAA…”

Her outline shimmered, and then she was covered in a bright light that made him blink his eyes. As the light faded, she stood five and a half feet tall, with her proportions still maintained. Try as much as he could, he couldn’t help but appreciate her form.

“That should be better. I found that being shorter than average with this figure makes me come off as both cute and sexy.”

She twirled on her toes, struck a pose facing away from him but turned to look at him and batted her eyes. “What do you think? Impress me and who knows I may expand your lesson plan to add in some of the basic erotic arts.”

Her clothes had not been loose, but now they were tight and smoothed out, accentuating her form. Not ready to admit his real thoughts, swallowing, he stammered, “Thisss isss nottt right, I ammm your stuuudent!”

She looked at him puzzled and muttered, “Why, what’s wrong with a little teacher-student intimacy?”, then exclaimed, “Oh! Is this something not allowed in your culture?”

Still, at a loss for words, he realised he had no clue. His new reality had different norms from his past life, but he’d never… and it wasn't like he'd not crushed on teachers on Earth and then there was that time... he gave up, “I am not sure.”

She grinned, “That means it is fine. So, again, impress me, and I may even give you the advanced lessons.”, she brushed her fingertips across his chest, speaking softly in a way that left him sweating and flustered at once.

“Now let’s begin”, her voice became serious and her attack came fast. It had him flying across the training floor before he could even register it.

Rudra woke up to sharp stinging hits on his cheek and a sharp, shrill voice. “Wake up! Wake up weak brains. Just one tiny hit and the lights go out, sheesh. Wake up. Oh, good, you are up.”

Rudra lay on his back looking up at a three-fourths of a foot tall woman floating above him. She looked like Sara. She was dressed as a cowboy... tight blue denim jeans, an open shirt tied over her stomach, ten-gallon hat on her head and boots with spurs that were being used to kick him in the face.

He sat up with a start to find himself on a dirt road close to the edge of a narrow mountain pass. The road disappeared over the edge and the greenery of a valley could be seen. When Rudra got up he saw that it was a large oval shaped valley, ringed by tall mountains with their peaks lost in clouds. The valley was about two hundred kos at its widest. It looked like a city had sprawled over the valley and now lay in ruins, reclaimed by nature. There was a massive waterfall to his right. It formed a small river that flowed into a lake spread over an area about a fourth of the valley. Another river flowed from the lake to exit the valley at the opposite end of him. Next to the river at the valley’s exit, about three and a third hundred kos away, the road exited the forest and passed underneath an ancient archway full of a sky-blue coloured light, shimmering like a portal.

Little Sara spoke up, now sitting on his shoulder. “That arch is your destination. You were out for an hour, so now you have 3 days and 39 hours. Giddy-up, yee-haw, go go go.”

“And if I don’t make it in time?”

“Nothing. Really. All of this will dissolve into nothing, including you.”

He gave her a dark look. “What if I go the other way?”

When Rudra turned, the same valley faced him. It was not a mountain pass. He was on a narrow saddle that was just some tens of feet wide and long and half a kos in height. The dirt road snaked down against the mountain and vanished into the forest as it turned into a stone road. He had a feeling if he tried climbing the saddle walls he’d still end up back where he was.

“All roads lead to the same journey.”

“Shouldn’t that be destination?”, Rudra asked in a sour tone.

Little Sara appeared to think for a while and said, “No. Same journey. Destinations can vary depending on the journey.”

“How can the journey be the same and destination be different?”

“If you know that, then your sentence made no sense, and you had no cause to question mine.”

Rudra gritted his teeth, glared at her for a few seconds, and turned around to go down the way he’d been facing. All of a sudden he stopped and looked back at Little Sara. Even as a question was forming she piped, “Glommed on to it have you?”

“How…?

“This dress. From your unit. I found a data package called Pixie Hook. That is a pleasant thing you’ve got going on with those energy sprites. I am glad you have such skills. This dress was in one of those… movies. By the way, delightful little things, these units. We had something similar, but we limited it in scope. We used various techniques and yantra to do most of what your unit does. ”

The unit was useful in transcribing memories, for sharing, or most commonly, for safekeeping. Not everyone had a memory like him. He had transcribed many memories, including a set of novels, movies and music for the pixies. He worried about what else she’d gone through.

“No, how did you access the unit at all? No one can access another unit without permission from the host. You can’t just access my information like this. You had no right.”, Rudra’s eyes widened in fear and anger.

“Pish-posh. A teacher has every right to know everything about a student they can. As for how. I am using advanced techniques. I am at a substantially higher level than you. The security protocols on that thing are laughable and you didn’t even apply any of them. I’ve updated its modules with better protocols. Read the manual and apply the updates, after we are done here.”

Rudra was furious. He tried to grab Little Sara and his hand passed right through. She bent over laughing. “I am not here. This is just a light-construct. Only you can see and hear me.”

“This is not funny.”, Rudra seethed.

“I think it is, so it is.”

Rudra stood there, eyes closed, trying to calm down.

Little Sara said softly, “What I did was not difficult, and doesn’t really need my levels. You will encounter enemies capable of raiding your unit, by themselves or using yantras, if you don’t read the manual. They will not go through it for dress ideas from movies from your past.”

Rudra was silent for a long moment, then he let out a long sigh and started down the path.

“Here you should call me Little Sara.”

His head whipped around.

“Oh, don’t worry. It was an easy guess.”, Sara said dismissively. “I can’t read your thoughts. Your unit doesn’t have that capability. It can only pick up thoughts you project at it. So you don’t have to talk, to talk to me, you can just talk to me through the unit.”

“Why create this projection?”

“To keep you company, give you something sexy and delightful to look at.”, Little Sara winked at Rudra.

Rudra groaned and started walking down the road, putting in his best effort to ignore the presence on his shoulder.

As Rudra reached the forest, he saw that further into the forest there was a small clearing where the road branched into six paths. A part of him just wanted to charge in and figure things out along the way, but Little Sara had not spoken to him. The silence had let him recover his calm. He was still angry, but he put it aside.

“What is this place?”

Little Sara immediately perked, “Valley of Separating”

“Separating?”

“Let me finish, Valley of Separating Duds from Dunderheads from the Commonplace from the Exceptional.”

Rudra gave her a look that said, “Really?”

Little Sara sighed, ”Kalaa Kataka, the Valley of Arts. Bal, Rann, Shashtra, Dhanur, Maya, Yantra, Rahsya, Palayan, Chaal. Strength, combat, weapons, bows, shakti techniques, shakti mechanics, stealth, escape, deception. It is a testing and training ground created for students like you.”

“And the six paths?”

“Choose any. Your path choice determines the order of your trials. All paths are of the same length and will go through all trials.”

Rudra nodded. He closed his eyes to prepare himself, running his senses and …

“What the hell is that?”

“You need to be specific.”

“That bead thing in my kunda.”

“Oh, that. Your mark was faulty, so I fixed it. That bead thing is a Shakti Mani. It's normally created using a single crystal disc, but I used six. You’re the last student so you lucked out and got all the remaining discs I had. A single disc mani can allow you to fight someone at my level for thirty-three seconds.”

“Mark? You mean my boon?”

“Interesting that you call it a boon. It is just a composite mark, made of four separate circuits, placed on your kunda. We developed it to constrain talented but troublesome kids. It eventually became a training aid for children. It’s useless otherwise.”

Little Sara smiled. “Troublesome kids. Very talented angry young children, immense potential, immense power for their age, taking it out on all around them. This mark meant they could hurt no one, they could still defend themselves and forced them to focus on themselves to overcome it.”

“What was the fix?”

“The mani will be your shakti source now. It will absorb shakti from you and from the universe to stay topped up. Once you overcome the mark, you can use it as a shakti battery.”

Rudra looked at Little Sara, shocked. She had changed the boon granted by a god, a boon that took a life to be granted, in passing, casually.