Beep! Beep! The alarm on Vikram Sharma's CRISPR machine screamed in his Mumbai lab, but before he could react—BOOM! A quantum processor exploded, swallowing him in a blinding flash. When his eyes snapped open, he wasn't surrounded by sterile equipment anymore. Instead, humid jungle air slammed into him, thick with the scent of sandalwood and earth. Men in tattered dhotis, wielding curved khanda swords, shouted in a guttural Prakrit dialect, their turbans soaked with sweat under a scorching sun. Vikram's heart pounded—he wasn't in 2025 anymore. He'd transmigrated into the body of Virat of Chandrapur, a young noble in Bharatvarsha, 300 CE!
Memories hit him like a monsoon flood. Virat's family—gone. His parents and sisters, slaughtered in a Kalinga raid. Chandrapur, his tiny principality, was a smoking ruin, its people broken and starving. Bharatvarsha was a chaotic mess of warring rajas, the Gupta Empire's grip slipping in the south. Superstition ruled, technology was stuck in the Stone Age, and caste divisions crushed the weak. But Vikram, now Virat, wasn't some helpless noble. He was a 21st-century engineer and geneticist, his mind a weapon sharper than any blade. "I'll build a dynasty," he growled, clenching his fists. "Not with blood, but with brains!"
Chandrapur was a dump—crumbling walls, empty granaries, and villagers who looked at him like he was cursed. He had twelve ashvaka warriors, loyal cavalrymen from his father's time, but they were half-starved. The people whispered of divine wrath, but Virat shut them up with a plan. Under a massive banyan tree, he scratched a Persian wheel design into the dirt. "This'll pull water from the stream," he barked. "We'll triple our crops!" A carpenter named Dev, barely 16, stepped up, his hands trembling but eager. With bamboo and scrap iron, they built it. In weeks, the fields exploded with millet, pulses, and rice—three times the yield! Virat taught the women to ferment sugarcane into jaggery ethanol, a fiery spirit that merchants from Magadha couldn't resist. Caravans rolled in, trading spices and metals for the booze.
But Vikram knew trade wasn't enough. In a hidden jungle cave, he hoarded saltpeter, sulfur, and charcoal. By sesame lamp light, he mixed black powder with his smith, Arjun, crafting bamboo rockets that hissed like vipers. When Kalinga raiders came, thinking Chandrapur was easy prey, Virat was ready. BOOM! Rockets lit the jungle, screams echoing as the enemy fled, leaving bodies behind. The "Fire of Chandrapur" was born—a legend that drew artisans and spies like moths to a flame.
He wasn't done. Virat called the elders again, announcing a gurukul for all—Brahmin to Shudra. The priests flipped, shouting about dharma, but Virat crushed their arguments with logic. "Knowledge is power!" he roared. He taught Sanskrit, math, and engineering, while spreading Ayurveda sanitation—boiled water, composted waste. Cholera vanished. By year's end, Chandrapur wasn't a backwater—it was a freaking beacon. The people chanted, "Maharaja of the Future!" But Virat knew the real fight was coming. Kalinga wanted revenge, and the Guptas were watching. The Saffron Dynasty was just beginning.