Terror Xanadu Part 3

Neha, our sensei is truly awe-inspiring. She is a true fighter. She is famous in the city as ‘the green blaze’.Our first meeting was supposed to create a comfort zone between us and our sensei. We would introduce ourselves and share our strengths and weaknesses. but nothing like this happened. Instead, we’re facing a super pressure-situation. This is our very first class under our new sensei. A pressure situation only means one thing. She’ll be judging our capabilities. This is my first chance to demonstrate my talent. I can’t miss this opportunity. I have exactly one hour. Which are sixty minutes exact? Each minute is precious. No time to analyze the situation. MY ONLY HOPE IS TO GO ALL OUT.

Mahnoor closed her eyes and focused. She held out a hand sign. Wrinkles appeared on her forehead. within seconds she called out’the art of vision’.her eyes widened.she could see clearly now. Better than crystal clear. she could count faster and change her vision quickly from one object to the other.but one question needed to be answered.

How big exactly is this grassland? Quickly she spun around and completed a full rotation. Her eyes widened. Exactly 400 m square. Her head started to spin. As panic prowled inside her she pressed her feet to stand her ground.she jerked it off. and then she smiled. ‘art of time’she whispered. Now she could observe faster.  The art of vision and the art of time had been activated. Even with these two arts, she couldn’t possibly cover the entire ground in 60 minutes. This only meant one thing. My only hope is to depend on fate that I’ll find the lucky clove in the land I’ll cover. She breathed.  Standing from her place she started observing EVERY clove from one corner of the ground. Her eyes went berzerk. Pupils wide like an owl's and her focus deepened.  Her head started to rotate as she performed her task.

Joy glared at the expanse. Calculating the size of this grassland will be of no use.it will not help me in finding the clove in any way. How can I find one clove between millions? What is a four-leafed clover, joy thought to himself? Then it hit him. Legend of the four-leafed clover is a myth. Sensei’s orders clearly directed us to find A FOUR LEAFED CLOVE. This means this specific clove is an artificial plant planted by our sensei. If I use the art of time on this grassland and speed up time, all the cloves will die with the exception of one. There's only one problem. I’ve never used the art of time on anything so huge, let alone a grassland with countless miniature plants. Well, there’s always a first time for everything. Let us try it out. Joy sat down and crossed his legs. He closed his eyes. He raised his hand and exclaimed’art of time.’ A greyish fog began to cover the grassland. Deadly fog with a vision-blurring effect nearing blindness.

Mahnoor gazed at the grey fog from the corner of her eyes. Another art has begun she thought. A few minutes later the whole grassland was enveloped. It felt cold like death. Far away, Joy changed his hand sign. A huge seal appeared on the grey envelope. At a distance Mahnoor gasped. She read the name on the grey fog ‘time seal’. OH MY DEAR GOD! Someone was practicing the time art on the grassland but why? WHY IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE?

Eventually, The grass started to dry out. Weeds and cloves begin thinning out. Dried leaves browned and fell underneath. A dreaded process had begun, she thought. Who is this? What the hell is he thinking? She span and looked for Ahad. She looked through her art of vision. She found him at once. Ahad was bent down and he was manually looking for cloves near the statue. It wasn’t him. Whoever was using the time art wasn’t doing it by mistake. That's the only probable explanation. Although, by the looks of it, the art had been mastered to a great extent. The entire grassland had been placed in the time seal in a matter of seconds.

Her eyes scoured for the time art user. Dried out cloves covered one third of the grassland now. Suddenly she stopped. She recognized Joy’s hand signs. He’s the time art user! Our orders were crystal clear. Locate a four-leafed clover. If he kills each and every weed on this grassland he won’t find what he’s looking for. what is he aiming at? is he trying to kill the task? If none of us find the clover we all fail. we’ll all be equals then. Is that what he wants ? We’ll all be at a disadvantage tomorrow. But he’s missing one major point. We’re not rivals. Only if we’d worked together we would’ve found the clove. IN EXACTLY ONE HOUR. But, who’d be the last one then? And more importantly who’d be the first one to claim the lucky clove. If everyone agreed to work together, who would call out orders? It was likely that all the team members would come to an agreement regarding these questions, but it would take several hours. this is the reason why mahnoor let it be and she decided to go solo in her search.