Ben was near his class. There he saw Jane and her lackeys. He was furious. It looked like they had come here for trouble. His friends were also standing opposite to them. They had strange looks. But something in Ben had snapped and all his reasoning had gone. It was replaced by fury. But the frightening part was that his face had a calm look. All the fury was concentrated on his eyes. The other students saw him. For some reason Ben looked terrifying today. He was staring intently at Jane and her group. They also saw him. He began to walk towards them. Midway through, he kept his bag on the classroom window. He reached near them. Jane and her group was terrified. Their hearts were strangled with fear. Ben looked different from before. It was as if he was the embodiment of entire cosmos. They were being suppressed from all sides. Ben came and stood in front of Jane. She could feel his breath. For some reason, she was terrified. She could not even breath. Ben's friends came to stop him fearing he would do something. Ben asked in a menacing tone "What do you want?" It was a simple sentence. No fancy dialogues or cringy speech. Just a simple question : 'What do you want?' Jane felt that she was hearing it from all sides. She felt like an insect in front of a mighty beast. She could not handle it. She fell unconscious.
Ben along with all other students were startled. But for some reason Ben had the presence of mind to not show it. He turned to her lackeys. They were equally terrified as her. They took the unconscious Jane and went away. All the students including his friends were looking at him with unbelievable bulging eyes. Suddenly the announcement for the first period was made. So, all of them went to the class.
Saarsh could not hold it and said " Ben what did you do? We have not seen you like this." Rais said, " The first time you interact with a lady, you made her fall, not for you, but unconscious. Man, you really are something." Ben looked at him irritably. He said "I thought those bas**s had come to cause trouble. I don't know why, but something snapped and I was really mad at them. I did not expect her to 'fall'." Roshin said with a smile, "Well you did make her fall." The friends had a laugh at Ben's expense. Soon the classes started.
After the third period they had a small break of 10 minutes. When Ben and group were about to go outside, they saw Jane and her group again. Ben was about to snap out again when Jane started to speak, "Ben I did not come here to cause problems. I came to apologise." All the students looked at this exchange with strange faces. The one and only notorious daughter of the infamous Meister was here to apologise. They could not believe their ears. Roshin asked her "You are here to apologise?" Jane said "Yes". Jim asked again " To us." Jane said a bit irritated "Yes." Saarsh asked in a sarcastic tone, "Why?" Jane answered with an irritated tone gritting her teeth " Because we feel it was wrong to threaten you and speak like that to you. So..." She looked at her friends. All of them said to the five friends "We apologize for our rash behaviour after the test." Rais was about to say something. Looking at his body language Ben knew it was something rhetoric. So, he interrupted and said " Apologies accepted. Now let us go on our way. Come on guys, I need to drink something for my sore throat." Ben, Saarsh, Jim, Rais and Roshin went to the cafeteria. The other students still were in daze at what happened.
On the way to the cafeteria Rais asked Ben "Why did you stop me? Why did we have come here so quickly? We could have embarrassed them, like how they embarrassed us." Ben replied to him "Don't you understand what is going on. Someone has pressured her father. That is the only reason she came to apologise. It was done reluctantly. If you push too much, the one who helped us might not help us again. That rabid dog, her father would come after us and our family. Are you ready to face those consequences? Can you handle the aftermath?"
Ben and his friends had some drinks in the cafeteria. They soon came back to the class. Their position in the class was different. As winners of the inter-class competition, and as the ones who suppressed the notorious Jane Gang, they were literally idols for their class as well as their juniors. But to the teachers they were nothing more than little kids who were playing little games. Most of them had seen far worse. All the teachers had an advanced age and experience. The profession of teaching had become really important. This was because all the nations now realized the importance of education for children. They needed to compete with each other in both martial power, defense technology , resource sourcing and development. For all that people were required. No amount of A.I could cope up with the capability of people with meridians. Hence, to nurture future generations, people with extensive experience and capabilities were put even in the junior most classes.
Ben's schedule became hectic. Much more than other students. He had to do school work, the exercises and the visualization. For the visualization method, he would use the page of 'Jamdagni Bhavana' and enter the trance state for some time before sleep. So in his sleep most likely he would be in the lucid state of dreaming about the cosmos. His mental faculties improved bit by bit. It was a slow but sure growth.
There was no change in the amount of work the students had to do as well. It only became more. The amount of class work and the amount of work from the martial class exhausted the mind and body of the students .
Another thing that was going to happen soon was affinity test for the students. The first half of the final year was there to push the students in terms of their mental and physical faculties and also for them to explore the various types of meridian arts and weapon types. Meridian arts was called so because, it not only consisted of martial arts, but also various sensory techniques, deduction techniques, the various forging and alchemical arts etc. Some techniques were dependant on the affinity of students. During the middle month of 13 month final year, the students will be informed of the affinity test date. They will have it done in a month and for the rest of the year they will be working on enhancing those aspects of their skills that is in resonance with their affinities. This was really important because once a meridian seed is put in a person, it cannot be removed without incurring a large cost. Removing the meridians will also affect the body of the person, damaging it extensively, especially the nervous system and cardiovascular vascular system, brain and heart.
It has been almost six months since the start of the academic year. The air was filled with the news and speculations about the affinity tests. All the students were excited about it. They were deeply in thought about their affinities. Some students had already thought about their affinities. They mostly had standard affinities or they had been groomed to have a particular affinity, which was common in rich families. But there were others who were unsure of what was their affinities as many of them did not have the standard affinities. Ben belonged to this category. He did not feel connected to anything. He was confused as to what he should do. He consulted with his parents and teachers. They all said the same thing: Wait.