Six months passed in the ancient world.
In real world time it amounted to twelve days — four separate visits, each one a few real world days, each re-entry jumping forward in the ancient timeline to pick up where meaningful progress had accumulated. Aditya had refined the pattern into something efficient and comfortable. Leave. Rest. Return. Resume.
The ancient world never noticed his absences. Murugan kept his room. The school continued. The rhythm held.
What changed was everything inside it.
The School
By the end of the second month Aditya was no longer the unnamed stranger observing from the edges.
He had a place. Not formally announced — nothing at Bodhidharma's school was formally announced — but real and recognised by everyone present. He sat where the serious students sat. He was corrected by Arjun as a matter of course rather than as an exception. When new students arrived and stood uncertainly at the entrance it was sometimes Selvam and sometimes Aditya who went to assess them.
'Full student status', he noted in his notebook after the first time this happened. Nothing more.
Bodhidharma had begun teaching him Varma Kalai directly at the start of the third month.
Not with fanfare. Not with ceremony. One afternoon after the medicine session Bodhidharma had simply remained after the other students dispersed and said — "Stay."
And then shown him the first principle.
The first principle of Varma Kalai was not a strike or a technique. It was a way of seeing — the ability to read the body in front of you as a map of energy pathways and pressure points rather than simply as flesh and bone and muscle. Bodhidharma demonstrated it on Aditya's own body — touching specific points with a precision that produced immediate unmistakable effects. Not painful. Just — undeniably real.
'It works', Aditya had thought in that first session. 'Exactly as the film showed. Completely real.'
On NZT the theoretical framework assembled itself around the practical demonstrations with extraordinary speed. The ancient knowledge and his modern understanding of neurology and physiology speaking to each other across fifteen centuries, confirming and deepening each other.
By the end of the sixth month he was working through the intermediate Varma Kalai forms with a competence that had taken most of Bodhidharma's long term students considerably longer to reach.
Nokku Varmam — the hypnotic technique — had begun in the fourth month.
This was slower. More internal. Less amenable to the NZT accelerated learning that had served him so well in the physical disciplines. Nokku Varmam required not just understanding but a quality of focused mental projection that had to be developed through practice rather than absorbed through comprehension.
He was at the beginning of it. But the beginning was real.
The Body
Six months of Kalari, Varma Kalai, Pranayama, Dhyana and the physical demands of daily ancient world life had produced results that even Aditya — who tracked his stats carefully and had seen them move before — found quietly remarkable.
The Pranayama work in particular had done something that nothing in the Limitless world had touched. The Energy stat — which had sat at zero through everything he had done there, through all the trading and building and NZT use — was moving. Not fast. But genuinely, measurably moving. The prana cultivation that Bodhidharma's breathing system produced was real in a way that had no modern equivalent.
The Dhyana was slower but he could feel it building — a quality of stillness and presence that was beginning to show up not just in formal meditation sessions but in ordinary moments. The way he read a room. The way he anticipated movement in Kalari sparring. A deepening awareness that had no single dramatic expression but was simply — there, more than it had been.
Thilakavathi
Their interactions had developed the way interactions develop between two people who share a focused space regularly over a long period of time — gradually, practically, without announcement.
She was sharp. That had been clear from the first exchange and had only become clearer over six months. Her knowledge of Siddha medicine had begun before Aditya's arrival and was deeper in certain areas than his own — she had been learning from Bodhidharma for longer and had a natural aptitude for the plant identification and preparation work that Aditya respected without making anything of.
They had moved from brief practical exchanges to longer conversations after sessions. Not personal — just the natural extension of two serious students discussing what they were learning.
She asked questions about his knowledge that he answered carefully — enough to satisfy her curiosity without revealing anything he couldn't explain within the framework of a traveller from far away who had learned from many sources.
She was curious about him. He could see it clearly. He noted it without acting on it and continued as before.
The Real World
The real world had moved in its own quiet way across those twelve days.
His body suit reduction was proceeding on schedule — three padding reductions in twelve days, each one barely noticeable on its own, accumulating into a visible gradual change that everyone around him was accepting without alarm as simply Aditya finally taking his health seriously.
His mother had called twice. Both times the conversation had been warm and ordinary — his father's work, a cousin's engagement, the neighbourhood news that accumulated regardless of what anyone was doing elsewhere. He had listened properly, asked real questions, been genuinely present in the conversations.
'Home', he thought after each call. Warm and uncomplicated.
College was essentially finished. Two remaining assessments, both trivially manageable. Graduation was a formality now — a date in the calendar, a ceremony to attend, a certificate to collect.
He had begun the process of converting a portion of the $2,000,000 cash into usable funds — carefully, through legitimate channels, small amounts at a time. A currency exchange here. A cash deposit there. Nothing that attracted attention. The process was slow but it was moving.
He had also — on his second real world visit — gone to the Limitless world briefly.
500 points for subsequent entry. Worth it.
He had arrived in New York, walked to the Eiben facility, collected a fresh supply of modified NZT from Howard — who asked no questions, as was his professional habit — and returned to the real world within a few hours of ancient world time.
[Equipment : Modified NZT-48 (x2180), Cash ($2,000,000)]
Resupplied. No anxiety about the count.
He checked his full stats on the evening of his fourth real world return — the night before he was due to re-enter the ancient world for the seventh month.
"Khushi."
"Yes, host."
"Show me my current stats."
[Host : Aditya]
[Species : Human]
[Gender : Male]
[Age : 22]
[Stats]
[Health : 15]
[Energy : 4]
[Strength : 16]
[Speed : 15]
[Endurance : 17]
[Intelligence : 14]
[Attributes : 0]
[Skills : Driving (level 2), Swimming (level 2), Coding (level 4), Hacking (level 3), Krav Maga (level 3), Kalari (level 3), Varma Kalai (level 2), Nokku Varmam (level 1), Pranayama (level 3), Dhyana (level 2), Siddha Medicine (level 2), Tamil (level 4), Telugu (level 2), Malayalam (level 2), Mandarin (level 2)]
[Equipment : Modified NZT-48 (x2180), Cash ($2,000,000)]
[Points : 3240]
He looked at the numbers for a long moment.
Six months of work reflected clearly across every column.
Health at 15 — the clean food, the active life, the absence of stress or pollution adding up quietly. Energy at 4 — the Pranayama doing exactly what it was supposed to do, prana cultivation producing real measurable results in a stat that had not moved through anything in the Limitless world. Strength at 16, Speed at 15, Endurance at 17 — the physical training producing numbers that were now well beyond what any ordinary training programme could have generated.
Kalari at level 3. Varma Kalai appearing and already at level 2 — the direct instruction from Bodhidharma accelerating it significantly. Nokku Varmam at level 1 — the beginning was real even if the beginning was all it was so far. Pranayama at level 3, Dhyana at level 2. Siddha Medicine at level 2. Tamil pushing to level 4 — six months of full immersion in a living ancient Tamil speaking community doing what no classroom ever could.
Points at 3240 — passive accumulation from story presence, active accumulation from direct interactions with Bodhidharma, from the Varma Kalai and Nokku Varmam instruction which represented significant story participation.
He closed the stats screen.
Put the phone down.
Looked at the ceiling of his dorm room.
Outside the campus was quiet. His world. Ordinary. Unchanged.
He had been here for twelve days of this world's time and had spent six months in another.
He was going back tomorrow.
One year remaining before Bodhidharma's departure.
Plenty left to learn.
He closed his eyes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For additional chapter visit my patreon
Cranksyst_101