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- Kamal Asthaan, Ujjain -
- May 22, 1939 | Night -
While the world beyond Bharat's borders churned in chaos — battles raging across Europe, alliances crumbling, leaders making desperate moves — here, in the deep heart of Kamal Asthaan, Aryan's focus was on something else entirely.
The laboratory was a place that didn't exist in maps or palace tours. From the outside, the room looked modest — no larger than a small library. But step through its rune-marked doorway, and the space stretched into an expanse far beyond the limits of the palace walls. The expansion magic, layered into the very bones of Kamal Asthaan, had turned it into a cathedral of invention.
Steel arches gleamed under soft golden light. The air hummed faintly — part from the subtle wards, part from the machines. Rows of intricate instruments, delicate glass tubing, arrays of silver and gold wiring, and even a small particle accelerator curved in one corner like a sleeping beast. This was Aryan's sanctuary, his war room of a different kind.
In the center stood the focus of his work: the new Prana Fuel Generator.
The earlier prototype, while groundbreaking, had been limited — slow in output and selective in what energies it could draw. This… was another creature entirely.
The core frame had been reforged from star-metal, an alchemical alloy that didn't exist in any single world. Vibranium for its perfect energy resonance, adamantium for unyielding durability, mithril for lightness and magical conductivity, orichalcum for stability, and smaller proportions of rare metals like Eighth metal, Nth metal and many more, from realms only Aryan and his Meta-System could reach. These metals weren't just mixed — they had been fused through a long, complex alchemical process, becoming something greater than the sum of their parts.
Around that frame were multi-layered runic arrays — not just etched on the surface, but folded into its very structure, so fine they could only be seen under a magi-tech microscope. Trillions of micro and nano-runes shimmered faintly in the light, each serving a purpose: drawing in, filtering, harmonizing, converting.
Within its depths spun micro-turbines powered by alchemical siphon cells and balanced by harmonic dampeners, all nested into the runic lattice like organs in a living body. And at its heart — the Core Matrix.
This wasn't just a lump of refined crystal. The Core was made of alchemically enhanced quartz, blended with star-metal threads and fine grains of soul sand from the Meta-System Store — a substance said to originate from the shores of Soul Realm itself. Instead of corrupting the machine, the soul sand acted as a stabilizer, allowing the Core to harmonize any type of energy, no matter how chaotic or hostile, before it was converted into the liquid essence of Prana Fuel.
On one side, faint tubes carried that shimmering, liquefied prana into a container — a crystal vessel of the same material as the Core, holding within it a suspension fluid that bonded with the prana to keep it perfectly stable.
Aryan stood in front of it, sleeves rolled up, his hands moving over the fine adjustment levers. His eyes glowed faintly as he channelled mana through the last of the rune calibration. The machine pulsed once, like it was breathing for the first time.
Vaani's voice sounded in his mind, warm yet precise.
"Calibration complete. Absorption efficiency at 97.4%. Dimensional fluctuation tolerance improved by 12%. You've surpassed the performance targets you set last month."
Aryan smirked slightly. "Of course. This one's not just meant to run quietly in a corner. This is meant to drink from everywhere — the skies, the ground, the dimensions in between."
"It will," Vaani replied. "With the current matrix, it can draw from ambient light, thermal drift, leyline currents, quantum fluctuations… even corrupted emotional energy, without harming any life form. Shall I activate selective-absorption protocols?"
He paused for a moment, adjusting a dial. "Yes. But keep the corruption filter on a hair-trigger. I don't want stray entropy making it into the storage tanks."
The generator's hum deepened slightly, the Core shimmering as threads of violet, gold, and pale blue energy coiled together before being drawn into the liquefaction chamber.
"One more thing," Vaani said, her tone shifting into that patient, advisory mode Aryan had learned meant she was about to push for something ambitious. "You could link it to the leyline anchors beneath Ujjain. That would give you a permanent energy well, and with the dimensional stabilizers in place, the generator could operate at double efficiency indefinitely."
Aryan considered that, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Possible. But if we link it now, anyone sensitive enough will notice the energy redirection. We wait until the war abroad draws their attention away."
"Pragmatic," Vaani acknowledged. "In the meantime, you could deploy two smaller prototypes in the coastal facilities. Spread the draw, and you'll be able to mask the energy signatures more effectively."
"Good idea," he murmured, jotting a quick note in his leather-bound lab journal. The war in Europe was burning hotter every week. Sooner or later, energy demands would spike everywhere — for weapons, for travel, for survival. Bharat would be ready… not just ready, but quietly ahead.
The generator gave a soft chime — the first full litre of refined Prana Fuel sliding into the containment crystal, glowing like a captured star. Aryan's fingers lingered on the warm surface of the vessel.
In that moment, the noise of the outside world — the clashing armies, the political manoeuvres, the hidden wars of spies — felt far away. This was the battlefield that mattered most to him right now: the one where invention, patience, and vision could tip the balance of decades to come.
—
The outskirts of Ujjain were calm that morning, the sky washed in soft gold as the sun climbed over the fields. To most who didn't know it's actual purpose or common passers-by, the tall structure on the rise looked like an ancient temple — its sandstone walls etched with graceful carvings, its stepped platforms weathered in just the right way to suggest centuries of history.
But the truth was far younger, and far more alive.
This was the first Prana Fuel power plant Aryan had ever built. Outwardly it carried the dignity of a sacred place, blending seamlessly with the land and its heritage. Inwardly, it was a heart of humming magi-tech, breathing in the energies of the world and breathing out power to the people.
It had been a few days since the new generator had been completed in the palace laboratory. Now Aryan stood in the plant's inner sanctum, the air cool and faintly charged, the faint scent of polished metal mixing with stone dust.
The old prototype had already been removed. In its place stood the new enhanced Prana Fuel Generator, its polished star-metal frame gleaming in the filtered light from narrow temple windows.
For now, the calibrations were cautious — just as he and Vaani had agreed. The machine would draw from safer, less conspicuous sources: thermal drift, atmospheric currents, leyline trickles. Dimensional energy and negative emotional currents would stay untouched until the time was right. No sense waving a flag for anyone watching too closely.
Beside him, the first prismatic crystal was already half-filled with liquefied prana fuel, its light shifting gently between pale blue and gold.
"Output stable," Vaani's voice reported in his mind. "Energy conversion efficiency matches the palace test. We can begin electrical distribution immediately."
Aryan glanced at the adjoining chamber where heavy alchemical conduits ran into a vast circular array of copper and rune-etched steel. This was where the liquid prana transformed into electricity — clean, constant, and far more abundant than any coal-burning plant could ever dream of producing. Already, the hum of the transformers was steady and confident, feeding homes, workshops, and factories across Ujjain.
Two more coastal plants — one in the west, one in the east — now carried their own upgraded generators, built by Aryan's own hands in the quiet hours between other duties. He'd followed Vaani's suggestion there: spreading the absorption load so the energy signatures blended into the background noise of the world.
The rest — seventy-eight smaller Prana Fuel plants scattered across Bharat's states — remained as they were for now. Their older models were still more efficient than anything the outside world could produce, and they gave him a wide net of quiet, dependable power without drawing the wrong kind of curiosity. More were already under construction — some in bustling cities, others tucked discreetly into rural corners.
Only Aryan knew the full blueprint. The runic harmonics, the core materials, the exact micro-etchings of the arrays — all of it lived in his mind and in the locked vaults of Kamal Asthaan. Maybe one day, he would share it, let others carry the work forward. But not now. The world was still too restless, too easily tempted to twist such things into weapons.
For now, he would keep building them himself. Quietly. Patiently.
Aryan stepped out into the temple courtyard, the wind carrying the distant sound of the city waking. From here, the plant looked exactly as it should — a sacred space, standing watch over the land.
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