The rain in Delhi didn't wash away the grime; it just made the city slick and treacherous.
Gautam sat behind the wheel of his hatchback, the wipers fighting a losing battle against the torrent. At twenty-three, he was the youngest Assistant Professor in his department.
His mind was currently occupied not with the road, but with the lecture on Game Theory he was scheduled to deliver the next morning.
"Nash Equilibrium," he muttered to himself, adjusting his glasses. "The optimal outcome where no player has an incentive to deviate..."
He never finished the thought.
From the periphery of his vision, a flash of bright pink darted onto the road. A child. A girl, chasing a paper boat that had escaped the sidewalk.
There was no time for Game Theory. There was no calculation of optimal outcomes. It was pure instinct.
Gautam wrenched the steering wheel hard to the left.
The car tires shrieked, losing traction on the oil-slicked asphalt. The vehicle spun, missing the child by inches, but momentum was a cruel mistress.
The car slammed violently into a concrete pillar of the unfinished metro overpass.
Metal crumpled. Glass shattered like diamonds.
Pain was instantaneous, followed immediately by a suffocating cold.
As Gautam's vision blurred, fading into the encroaching darkness, his last thought was a strange mix of regret and peace.
At least... she's safe.
Then, the world turned off.
"Surya! Surya, wake up! The lawyer is coming in an hour!"
The voice was harsh, grating, and smelled faintly of incense and old paper.
Gautam gasped, his eyes snapping open. He sat up violently, his hands clutching his chest, expecting to feel the jagged ruin of his ribcage. instead, he felt cotton. A thin, sweat-drenched banian.
He wasn't in a crushed car. He wasn't in a hospital.
He was lying on a woven cot in a room with a high, tiled ceiling supported by teak beams. A ceiling fan wobbled dangerously above him, cutting through the humid air with a rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack.
"Where...?" Gautam's voice came out raspy, but it wasn't his voice. It was deeper, with a thicker accent.
He scrambled off the cot, his legs feeling heavy and foreign. He stumbled toward a cracked mirror hanging on the lime-washed wall.
The face staring back was not Gautam, the bespectacled academic from Delhi.
This face was sharper. High cheekbones, a strong jaw dusted with stubble, and unruly thick black hair. He looked younger, perhaps twenty or twenty-one.
"What is this?" he whispered, touching the reflection.
Suddenly, a headache split his skull. Not a migraine, but a torrent of data. Memories that weren't his flooded his neural pathways.
Name: Surya Gowda.
Age: 21.
Location: Bannerghatta Road, Bangalore.
Date: April 14, 2001.
2001?
Gautam—no, Surya—stumbled back, gripping the edge of a heavy wooden desk. He looked at the calendar on the wall.
A picture of Goddess Lakshmi adorned it. The date was circled in red.
April 14, 2001.
"I went back?" Surya breathed, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I died in 2025. I'm... I'm back in the past."
The memories clarified. Surya Gowda. Orphaned at twelve.
Raised by his grandfather, a stern man named Thimmegowda, who had passed away just three weeks ago.
Surya was a Mathematics graduate from a local college, currently unemployed and sitting on a massive inheritance of land that his grandfather had fiercely protected.
Surya looked out the window. Unlike the concrete jungle of 2025, this Bannerghatta was lush. He saw coconut trees, muddy roads, and in the distance, the dense green cover of the National Park. The air didn't smell of smog; it smelled of wet earth and cow dung.
A grin slowly spread across his new face.
"2001," he laughed, the sound manic. "Bitcoin hasn't launched yet. The 2008 crash hasn't happened. Land prices in Bangalore are about to explode. Google is still a baby. Amazon is just books."
He looked at the papers on the desk. It was the property deed. Four acres of land near the main road. In 2001, this was considered the outskirts. In 2025, this would be the heart of the IT corridor.
"I'm rich," he whispered. "I just need to sell this old house and the land, take the cash, and invest in Infosys and MRF shares. Then wait for crypto."
He grabbed the deed, his hands trembling with the anticipation of guaranteed billionaire status.
"Grandpa wanted me to run a school here," the residual memory of Surya Gowda whispered in his mind. "But that's stupid. Why run a school when I can own the city?"
He reached for a pen to sign the intent to sell.
BZZZZT.
A sound like a high-tension wire snapping echoed inside his brain.
The world turned grey. Time seemed to freeze. The dust motes dancing in the sunbeam stood still.
A golden light erupted from the center of his forehead, projecting a holographic interface into the air before him. It wasn't the sci-fi blue of movies; it was the color of old parchment and glowing saffron fire.
[Legacy Detected: Lineage of the Sapta Rishis & Blessings of Saraswati]
[Soul Synchronization: 100%]
[System Activation: THE GURUDEVA SYSTEM]
A robotic, yet distinctly melodious voice echoed in his head, sounding like a Vedic chant synthesized into binary code.
[Warning: Host intention to sell 'Sacred Land' detected.]
[Action Denied.]
Surya stared at the floating text. "What? Who are you?"
[I am the path to Enlightenment and Power. I am the Gurudeva System. The Host has been given a second life not to hoard wealth like a merchant, but to build a legacy like a King.]
[Main Quest Initiated: The First Brick]
Objective: Do not sell the ancestral land. Establish an Educational Institution on these grounds.
Time Limit: 30 Days.
Penalty for Failure: Erasure of the Soul (Permanent Death).
Reward: Starter Pack (Eye of Vidya), +10 Charisma, and the opening of the 'System Shop'.
Surya dropped the pen. It clattered loudly in the silence of the room as time resumed.
"Erasure of the soul?" he choked out.
He looked at the deed, then at the floating golden letters that wouldn't vanish. His plan to be a lazy billionaire was crumbling. He was being forced to work.
"Fine," Surya gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowing. "You want a school? I'll give you a school. But I'm doing it my way. I won't just build a school... I'll build an empire."
[System Notification: Ambition Detected. Synchronization Complete.]
[Welcome, Principal Surya.]