Chapter 3: The Daily Grind
[System task interface has been initialized.]
[Task 1: Go to class lazybones!]
[Reward: 1 spirit stone}
Writing the first chapter of this novel had made me sleep quite late and I had inevitably overslept.
The class had started 15 minutes ago and I was still in my hall.
If not for the system notification I wouldn't have even awakened seeing that I had forgotten to set
my alarm.
Pulling on my pants with one hand and brushing my teeth with the other, I somehow managed to slip on my pair of slippers (no time for shoelaces) and dashed for the cycle shed.
Fumbling with the keys, still bleary from my recent awakening, I hopped on and put my foot to the pedal.
Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur… henceforth IIT Kgp…. is huge.
Spanning 1200 acres, getting from one end to another involves distances of the order of magnitude of Kilometers.
Unfortunately, my class was to be held in the Nalanda building, a newly built academic complex which just so happened to be the farthest from my hall of residence.
I cry every time.
Huffing and puffing I somehow managed to reach the class within 10 minutes.
Including the time for my morning rituals… I was 30 mins late.
I immediately transferred occupations to ninja from student and when the Prof's back was turned towards the presentation screen…
Infiltration successful.
*ding*
The sound of my unmuted phone brought the Prof's attention to me.
Looking at me frozen with my bag still on my shoulder, he gave me a knowing smile before turning away…
Damn. I wasn't getting attendance today.
Depressed, I pulled out the offending device.
On my phone screen, the system had displayed a task completion message.
Cursing it's horrible timing, I muted the phone and pressed the ok button on the message.
Suddenly, a spirit stone popped out of the screen and I nearly dropped it.
My heart nearly stopped beating…
What if the guy next to me saw it?
Would it count as revealing the system?
Was I going to be atomized?
Turning to my side, I saw the guy next to me raising an eyebrow at me before concentrating on the projected ppt.
So, the spirit stones were invisible?
I sighed in relief, putting the phone away and getting my notebook out.
After thinking for a moment, I crushed the Spirit stone and the familiar surge of mental awareness flooded me.
The world seemed to gain definition and even the minutest details became clear.
The fog of sleepiness covering me retreated and I felt like I had just taken a long nap.
When the tutorial started, the effect of the stone became particularly clear.
Ok, so this was the control systems class and we had to find out a canonical representation of a state space model.
The first thing to do was write the block diagram by inspection… tested your logical linkage abilities… I found it eminently easy.
But the next step… turning the block diagram into an algebraic transfer function by simplification… I always made mistakes here unless I was super careful.
Today though, it was like my mind was a supercomputer and the calculation was done in the blink of an eye.
So, the spirit stones had a temporary boosting effect on mental faculties…
The test taker's panacea.
I had to store these up somehow.
By the end of the class, my productivity rose so high that I was able to complete the assignment sheet in class itself and upload it to Moodle through my phone.
Free weekend here I come!
Just as the class ended, my mind seemed to hiccup and I felt stupid.
It was like I had a huge slide in my IQ…
No, more like someone had switched me from Ubuntu to Windows.
I just felt…. S…L…O…W.
I subconsciously found myself reaching for my phone to see if I could somehow earn more spirit stones so I didn't have to feel this way.
But halfway there, my mind caught up to what I was doing.
I am a strict teetotaller and I have never touched drink, let alone drugs or even a cigarette.
So, I have no idea what addiction feels like but what I felt then must be it.
I immediately grew alert… the system was trying to get me addicted to mind altering magical stones.
No matter how lucrative they might be, if they had me craving more after a single use… they were dangerous.
It might be just a matter of time before the system was handing out tasks like Kill A or Stab B and I an incurable addict was willing to do it just for my next spirit stone fuelled high.
Nope.
Not today System.
This bad boy ain't turning into the Indian version of Jack the Ripper.
Rahul the Ripper? That's the most generic Indian name I could think of.
Anyway… I decided to store my stash of spirit stones and use them only during exams… sparingly, so
I wouldn't develop a dependence.
I had two more classes there before I had to move to my Department for an elective class.
+2 spirit stones.
Apparently, I could store them in the phone until needed… basically infinite inventory, but only for cash.
Who knows, maybe there would be some quest chain to unlock the general inventory.
Huff
Puff
Pedal
Pedal
Another kilometre of cycling under my belt.
No wonder the students of IIT Kgp all lose weight after they come here.
My BMI was 21 before I came.
It is now 19.
IIT why you do this?
Parking my cycle with an attractive drift… totally unintentional… it's the monsoons here and it had
apparently rained while I was in class. Wet ground… skid… yeah.
Anyway, as I was taking my seat in class, my phone vibrated.
[Congratulations for cycling the fastest you ever have over the distance of 1 km. Hidden quest reward: 1 energy stone.]
Oh?
Hidden quests?
Interesting.
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