By the time Sharath reached the age of four, the line between prodigy and enigma had blurred entirely. While other children still stumbled over vowels, Sharath spoke with the diction of a seasoned orator. He could recite the local epics, not just as memory drills, but as interpretive acts—infusing them with subtext, irony, and nuance that left bards in stunned silence. His mind was a library, but not a stagnant one—it rearranged its contents, questioned footnotes, rewrote conclusions.
But it wasn't history that held his gaze for long.
While the other children played with toy swords carved of driftwood, Sharath's eyes were fixed on wagons—groaning, squeaking, inefficient contraptions of lumber and rope, sloshing through mud and rut. He watched their heavy reliance on beasts—oxen with glazed eyes, horses with worn hooves—and asked a simple question with revolutionary consequence:
Why?
Why rely on creatures that tired, that ate, that faltered? Why suffer when movement—pure kinetic motion—could be decoupled from biology altogether?
Each wagon was a problem statement. Each wheel a failed optimization.
On his fifth birthday, a quiet celebration was held. No grand procession. Just a meal of saffron rice, clarified butter, and sautéed figs under the twinkling copper lanterns of the inner veranda. Lord Varundar, ever the stoic patriarch, sat with the calm of a mountain, only occasionally offering a word or nod.
Between mouthfuls, Sharath set down his spoon, wiped his lips with a linen corner, and spoke.
"Father," he said, voice soft but unwavering, "may I have three blacksmiths assigned to me?"
Lord Varundar blinked slowly. "To do what?"
"I want to improve movement," Sharath answered. "Not through beasts, but through constructs. Machines powered by our own legs. Energy without fatigue."
Silence followed. Then came a low chuckle—not mocking, but incredulous—from his uncle, seated nearby. Lady Ishvari's spoon froze mid-air.
Varundar's brow furrowed, not in anger, but calculation.
"You've given this thought?" he asked.
Sharath nodded. "Charcoal diagrams. Weight-to-torque ratios. Pedal rotation. Gear ladders. Leverage under load. I need forges. Precision tools. Experimentation."
The table grew hushed. This was no game.
Lord Varundar finally exhaled. "Very well," he said. "Three blacksmiths. One forge room. One quarter year. Prove your vision—or abandon it."
Sharath bowed his head. "Thank you."
Tools were fetched. A long-abandoned smithing chamber, choked with cobwebs and rusted vises, was swept clean. A new workbench was installed, lanterns hung, and three skeptical blacksmiths arrived from neighboring forges. Grizzled, muscular men who had forged horseshoes, plows, and the occasional ceremonial blade.
None of them knew what to make of the five-year-old giving them engineering diagrams sketched in charcoal and lamb's ink.
At first, they laughed.
Then they saw the diagrams—meticulously labeled parts, torque calculations, tread ratios, heat conductivity annotations. The laughter died.
Sharath proposed the impossible: a pedal-powered transport, tricycle in shape, using a crankset and chain assembly to transfer motion. No horses. No arcane propulsion. Just biomechanics.
And so began the experiments.
In the weeks that followed, the chamber echoed with a chorus of clangs, curses, and cautious awe.
Gears snapped. Frames bent. Bolts sheared off. Early prototypes collapsed under their own ambition.
Sharath took notes after every failure, sketching over old schematics, iterating like a startup founder with endless VC funding. He modified gear radii, adjusted pedal lengths, reconfigured wheelbase tension. He tested copper alloy blends for weight reduction and experimented with crescent-density grips to maximize foot retention.
He even invented a rudimentary stress-testing ritual using arcane vibration runes to simulate rider pressure—earning a begrudging nod of respect from the eldest blacksmith.
On the 58th day, the prototype moved.
Just ten feet.
But ten feet without a beast, without a push, without magic.
Just the pure will of design.
Sharath didn't smile. He logged the results, chalked the courtyard with test markers, and started planning Variant II.
By the fourth month, the boy had constructed three fully functional models:
A tricycle, offering stability for younger riders.
A two-wheeled cycle, focused on speed and agility.
A flatbed cycle, designed for farmers and merchants to haul produce and wares.
Each used interchangeable parts—an early nod toward modular design and maintainability. He even proposed standardizing certain parts across guilds for scalable production.
He called for a demonstration.
The copper-tiled Inner Yard became an amphitheater of murmurs and speculation. Nobles, scribes, guards, and servants gathered. Lord Varundar sat on a stone throne, arms crossed. Lady Ishvari stood beneath the shade of a whisperbark tree, hands clutched in anxious pride.
Sharath emerged, clad in simple linen, pushing the sleekest cycle of the trio.
He mounted.
Pedaled.
And rode.
Not once. Not twice. But loop after loop—faster each time. He drifted corners, compensated for balance shifts, demonstrated speed, braking, and hauling.
"This needs no creature," he declared, skidding to a smooth stop before the assembly, "no hay, no lash, no master. Only balance… and will."
The crowd was silent.
Then came the gasps.
Then the applause.
The head blacksmith knelt, murmuring a prayer.
Lord Varundar rose slowly, walked to his son, and said, "You will not be confined to noble rituals or courtly distractions. You have seen something greater. And now—others must see it too."
That evening, as the sun cast long golden shadows across the Darsha estate, servants and scholars whispered of what they had witnessed.
A child had defied not just physics—but tradition.
The world did not yet know it, but Navaleon had just moved.
And it was not pulled by a horse.
It was pushed by an idea.
To be continued...