It began with dust.
Not the kind that settled on shelves, but the heavy, dark-red dust that stuck to fingernails and lungs — the kind that told Vikram, this land was still breathing beneath its silence.
The mining fields near Dhanbad weren't yet fully British-run. The East India Company had once controlled much of the coal and ore here, but after the Company's collapse, local contractors — mostly loyal to zamindars or princely estates — managed half the work.
But "managing" wasn't the same as owning.
And certainly not the same as understanding.
Vikram arrived in the form of a consultant — a made-up title supported by real paperwork, memory-planted authorizations, and introductions whispered through temples and trade agents. By now, he could walk into a room and, within two handshakes, begin building a map of everyone's desires.
And everyone in mining had the same desire: extraction without inspection.
That's where he started.
He visited a half-functional iron site owned by Hari Singh, a bloated landlord who spoke with too much volume and too little accuracy. His books were fake. His payroll lists longer than his output. The British inspectors hadn't been around for a year — no one cared.
Vikram did.
He asked for a tour.
He shook hands with fifteen workers.
Three seconds each.
By nightfall, their skills burned in his mind like coals:
Intermediate Excavation
Advanced Ore Detection
Beginner Slope Engineering
Elementary Pulley Repair
Beginner Tunnel Mapping
Intermediate Manual Drilling
No machines.
Just people.
And through Magicnet, he could weave their instincts into something far more precise than British geology reports.
Within a week, he'd mapped:
Two deep iron veins missed by current dig routes
One abandoned coal shaft with active reserves
A natural water source hidden beneath a collapsed pit
He made no announcement.
He just rerouted five workers to the collapsed pit, claimed they were building latrine trenches, and opened the water flow.
Then sold it to the landlord for ₹200 as a "consultant solution."
The man praised him.
Vikram pocketed the coin.
And filed it in his mental tally: first extraction, zero loss.
But this wasn't about just making money.
It was about control.
Mining meant tools.
Tools meant steel.
Steel meant factories.
And factories meant power without permission.
The British had long controlled Bharat's ability to process — cotton, ore, salt. They allowed raw exports. Not refineries. Not furnaces.
Vikram would change that.
But first, he needed to own the source.
Using a combination of bribes, silent partnerships, and memory-forged paperwork, Vikram created four fake names.
Under these identities, he bought or leased:
A low-output iron quarry near Hazaribagh
A limestone deposit in Rewa
A disused coal patch in Talcher
A stone mining operation camouflaged as a temple restoration project
Each one had no direct link to him.
But each manager, worker, and carrier was connected through Magicnet.
He didn't need to be there.
He could feel the rock shift through memory echo. He could sense when a wall cracked, when a vein ran dry, when a manager hesitated in his report.
No British officer had that.
Not even close.
As production rose, he introduced one final innovation.
Not machines.
But skill fusion.
He took five skills:
Beginner Load Balancing
Intermediate Tunnel Reinforcement
Elementary Ore Sorting
Intermediate Safety Procedures
Beginner Water Management
And created one hybrid:
Advanced Mine Operations
He copied it to fifteen workers across three sites.
Within two weeks, output rose by 22 percent.
Injury rates fell by half.
One British officer noted in a telegram: "Unexpected stability in native extraction zones."
The file went nowhere.
Just another "oddity."
Exactly what Vikram wanted.
He used mining revenue to fund:
Construction of a mobile forge unit, disguised as a bullock-cart-mounted grain grinder
Quiet weapons assembly spaces in temple basements across Jharkhand and Orissa
Training programs for underground sabotage teams, disguised as clay modeling workshops for boys
But he also used it to fund people.
He paid families whose men had been killed during early coal protests.
He built a school in a remote tribal village — the first one where Sanskrit was taught as default.
He gave loans with no interest — and told borrowers they were free.
They never forgot him.
But the British weren't completely asleep.
A new inspector was sent.
Captain Ellis, a Welshman with a stiff walk and sharp memory.
He began poking around Hazaribagh.
Asking about transport schedules. Truck weight inconsistencies.
He came with papers, not guns.
Vikram had seen his type before.
He approached through Abdul, a meat supplier whose goat shop was three doors down from the inspector's quarters.
Abdul shook Ellis's hand while collecting coin.
Thread formed.
That night, Vikram entered Ellis's mind.
It was sharp. Linear. Mathematical.
No cruelty.
Just order.
And in that order, Vikram planted slight disarray.
He adjusted numbers.
Swapped names.
Moved weight logs by 5 kg.
Planted a memory of a friendly conversation with "Rajiv Deshmukh," a nonexistent inspector from Calcutta who'd "already cleared the site last year."
Ellis awoke with clarity.
Filed a closing report.
Left by rail.
Three days later, Vikram quietly took over the quarry next to the limestone site.
Under a new identity.
With a new team.
All connected.
All loyal.
All progressing silently.
And in the Magicnet's vast dreamspace, new orbs began to form — combinations of metallurgy, excavation, logistics, and weapon design.
He was building the heart of a war machine.
One rock at a time.