Two days have passed since Mr. Piyush told us about the test. Since then the class's atmosphere has become as serious as a heart attack. It's not like the students were slacking before, but you can easily feel the change in the atmosphere the moment you step inside the class. The solemn silence in the class and the students busy studying, even during the breaks in between the lectures and lunch gave me a complex.

The pressure of the test and the will to study didn't make things easy. The lectures were still long and exhausting. But I couldn't afford to take it easy anymore. I tried my best to absorb as much information as possible during the lectures so that I don't have to read the same topic again at home.

It was a Physics lecture. Mr. Piyush was teaching the concept of friction and its types. As physics has very limited theory-based questions, I decided it will be faster if I study only the important sections by myself at home and focus more on problem-solving. So I began studying botany in which I was way behind everyone else.

"Asura, what are you doing?. Things are already bad enough between you and Mr. Piyush. What will you do if you get caught?" Rahul whispered angrily without moving his eyes away from the blackboard.

"Don't worry. Things can not become any worse between me and him." I replied sarcastically. 

"That's not funny, you know that right?" Rahul asked, furrowing his brows.

He was not wrong. It was a risk, considering my relationship with the teacher. But If I don't utilize every possible second, I won't pass the test. So I would better get caught instead of failing and getting expelled.

Everything was going smoothly. There are only a few minutes left for the bell to ring and the lecture to end. Mr. Piyush picked up a chalk and started writing a question on the backboard. He drew a block placed on the frictional surface. The weight of the block is 10kg, the coefficient of friction is 0 and the force acting on the block is 10 Newtons. He turned towards us, "Harsh can you tell us, what will be the acceleration of the block?" He asked, looking at a student sitting in Aishwarya's row.

It was impressive to see that he has already memorized the names of the student. The student with chestnut-brown curly hair and thick eyebrows stood up falteringly.

"Poor Harsh," muttered Rahul from next to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I highly doubt that he can answer that question. He is not good academically. Even his basic concepts are all messed up, particularly in physics. I wonder how he passed the entrance exam for this college." At least the original Asura was smart enough to get through the entrance exam.

Harsh worriedly looked around as he bit his nails. Is he hoping to get an answer from someone? He looked at me with his nervous eyes and noticed the botany textbook.

He immediately raised his hand, "Sir, Asura is studying Botany."

"Tch." He wasn't looking for help. Instead, he was just looking for another prey to take his place.

"That snitch," grumbled Rahul.

Mr. Piyush's attention was now shifted from Harsh onto me. "Botany? HaHaHaHa" he held his head as he laughed out loud, "You really like getting in trouble, don't you?"

It seems like Mr. Piyush is an important character in my journey. No matter what I do, he is somehow involved or responsible for all of my problems. I stood up quietly and didn't try to explain myself. Even if I had an excuse it wouldn't work against him.

"You think you are too smart for this lecture, that you don't even see the need to pay attention, huh? Let's see if you are really a smartass." He picked up his chalk and started writing another question on the board. The shrieking sound of the chalk striking against the board resonated across the class.

He dropped the chalk as he finished writing the question and rubbed the chalk dust off his hands making a loud clapping sound. "Solve this!" He said with a smirk on his face.

Even though I wasn't paying attention. I knew that this question was way too difficult for a student to solve using just the theory that he taught in this lecture. All of the students held their heads down avoiding to attract his wrath on themselves. He knew I couldn't object to it, as I wasn't paying attention.

There's no way I could solve something that difficult even if I knew the basics. So I decided not to do anything. The room was silent. Mr. Piyush looked at me with a menacing look in his eyes.

"Sixteen Newtons" a low voice came from the left row. Is that the answer or is someone messing with me? At least the units are the same as that of friction. I picked up my pen and pretended to solve it in my notebook. Should I trust this guy? Well, it's better than standing ludicrously in this deafening silence. I repeated the answer, "The friction acting on the block is Sixteen Newtons."

Mr. Piyush's eyes widened in surprise when he listened to the answer coming out of my mouth, "How did you…?" He murmured.

His reaction confirmed my suspicion about the question being rather difficult to solve with the current level of principles taught.

"There's only one student who could have solved this question," he said as his eyes darted across the classroom for a specific someone. 

"Abed Saiyed, stand up." He ordered.