The elevator wasn't like the ones in the main college building; it didn't creak or groan. It descended with a silent, pressurized hiss that made Veer's ears pop. As the floor indicator plummeted past the basement levels, Veer watched the reflection of himself in the brushed-metal doors. He looked like the same "Lanth" everyone mocked—wrinkled shirt, messy hair, and eyes that had spent too many hours staring at equations he couldn't solve. But inside, his pulse was a rhythmic drumbeat of rebellion.
I am the best, aren't I? he thought, a jagged edge of his defensive humor surfacing. Most kids skip class to go to a movie. I'm skipping class to join a secret society that might get me vaporized.
The doors slid open to reveal a world that didn't belong beneath a standard Indian college. The hallway was a corridor of white light and reinforced carbon fiber. This was the MHA Screening Center—the heart of the Meta-Human Association's recruitment web. The air was thick with the scent of antiseptic and something metallic, like a penny held under the tongue.
Veer stepped out, feeling the 1,000 rupees in his pocket. It felt lighter now, as if the choice he had made had finally stripped the money of its power to haunt him. He followed the signs toward "Physical Synchronization Testing," passing glass-walled rooms where candidates were being subjected to grueling tests. He saw a young man, older and more muscular than him, collapse on a treadmill while a technician in a hazmat suit recorded data with cold indifference.
He reached a heavy pneumatic door. Beside it stood a security terminal. Taking a breath, Veer remembered the "Inheritor" file he had glimpsed on Khurana's tablet. He didn't have a badge, but he remembered a specific sequence of numbers his father had scribbled in the margins of his old diary—numbers Veer had once thought were just failed business coordinates.
He punched the code into the keypad. The light turned from red to a soft, inviting blue. The door hissed open.
"Name?"
A woman in a sharp, grey military-style uniform stood at a desk, her eyes not moving from a holographic screen.
"Veer Raheja," he said. His voice didn't shake.
The woman's fingers froze over the interface. She looked up, her gaze scanning him with a clinical intensity that made him feel like a specimen under a microscope. "Raheja? We weren't expecting a candidate from that lineage today. Did Dr. Khurana authorize your screening?"
"I'm here on my own authority," Veer replied, stepping closer. "Check the synchronization database. My markers are already on file."
The woman tapped the screen. A moment of silence stretched between them, filled only by the low hum of the facility's ventilation. Suddenly, a series of red warning icons on her screen turned a brilliant, pulsing gold. The woman's professional mask slipped, just for a second, her eyes widening in genuine shock.
"Authorization code: Vajra," she whispered, reading the screen. She stood up immediately, her posture shifting from dismissive to alert. "Follow me. Now."
She led him into a circular chamber where a single, terrifyingly beautiful piece of technology sat on a pedestal. It was the "Black Crystal" injector—a device designed to pump the essence of Titan's energy directly into a human's nervous system.
"The synchronization test is simple, Mr. Raheja," the woman said, her voice now carrying a strange respect. "If your body accepts the serum, you are a Yoddha. If it rejects it... well, we have a medical team on standby, but the survival rate for rejection is less than five percent. Are you sure you want to proceed without the standard three-month preparation period?"
Veer looked at the needle, then thought of the black SUV at the end of his street. He thought of his mother, sitting at the kitchen table, counting coins to buy a book that wouldn't save them. He thought of the three-crore debt that was slowly strangling his family to death.
"I've been preparing for this my whole life," Veer said. "I just didn't know it until today."
He sat in the chair, the cold leather biting through his shirt. As the mechanical arm of the injector lowered toward his vein, Veer closed his eyes. He didn't think about Math. He didn't think about Priya. He thought about his father, the man who had hidden his greatest discovery inside his son's own blood.
The needle pierced his skin.
At first, there was nothing. Then, a wave of liquid ice surged up his arm, followed by a fire so intense it felt like his bones were being forged in a furnace. Veer's vision flared into a kaleidoscope of violet and gold. He felt his heart stop, then kickstart with a force that rattled his entire frame.
In his mind, a cold, mechanical voice began to speak—not a person, but a system.
[INITIALIZING NEURAL LINK...]
[BLOODLINE RECOGNIZED: RAHEJA]
[SYNCHRONIZATION RATE: 99.9%]
[RANK ASSIGNMENT: EVALUATING...]
Veer gasped, his body arching in the chair. He felt the 1,000 rupees in his pocket, but it no longer felt like grocery money. It felt like the price of a life he had just left behind.