Chapter 2 : i become karna
I slowly opened my eyes and tried to sense myself.
Why do my hands feel so small? And the surprising thing is—I had died, so how am I able to see the sky? I should be seeing darkness.
After some time, I realized that I had become a newborn baby—a baby whose parents had set him afloat in a river.
Are there really such parents in the world? If they couldn't raise the child, they could have given him to an orphanage or to a family that couldn't conceive.
After thinking all this, I decided to introduce myself.
"Hello, I am a boy from Earth, and my age must be around 20 years."
I was walking down the street; the road was completely empty. But just my bad luck—a truck came out of nowhere and hit me.
I slowly began to lose consciousness, and there was complete darkness all around.
That was my story, but now I had reincarnated into the body of an infant.
This business of reincarnation usually happens only in Japan and China, where people get reincarnated after being hit by 'Truck-kun,' but when did this start happening in India?
Just then, I saw a blue panel in front of me, and my eyes lit up.
What? Did I get a System, the kind every reincarnator gets? System! System, answer me!
But despite my repeated calls, the System gave no reply.
I rolled my eyes. This System doesn't seem to have an AI. It seems this System will only react when I give a command by speaking or thinking.
"Show my profile," I commanded in my mind.
Something changed on the panel, and new information appeared.
[ Name: Karna ]
[ Age: 1 Day ]
[ Bloodline: Surya Dev ]
[ Soul Weapon: Golden Kavach, Kundal ]
[ Storage: Starting Package ]
Was I born in the Mahabharata era, and that too as Karna? Has God played some joke on me?
An expression of anger appeared on my cute face.
Thank goodness I wasn't awake at the moment when my mother, Princess Kunti, was abandoning me. Otherwise, seeing my mother's dramatic tears, I would have cursed her in such foul language.
All that was a moment passed; there was no use remembering it. I focused my attention back on my profile.
At the end, there was a 'Starting Package'. I decided to open it; if I got a better reward, it would be great.
"System, open the Starting Package," I ordered the System.
There was no verbal response from the System, which I had expected.
The Starting Package opened, and a blue-colored sphere appeared before me, floating in the air.
A sphere? What use is this to me? But wait, let me look into it.
As soon as I focused my attention on the sphere, new information began to emerge on the panel.
[ Psychic Sphere: It is filled with mental energy. Upon touching it, anyone can obtain psychic powers. ]
Yes! This is a terrific item, exactly what I needed right now. With this, I can control my basket, making it move slowly so that someone spots me.
Because I did not want to accept my fate. I know what happens next. A Suta (charioteer caste) family would see me and take me in their lap. With that, my caste would become "Suta" in the eyes of everyone.
I could tolerate being an orphan, but I could not tolerate going into a Suta family. If I were to join a Suta family even once, this stigma of caste would stick to me forever.
In this era, one only hears about Dharma and Adharma, but no one pays attention to caste discrimination. Because everyone benefits from it, even Sri Krishna turned a blind eye to it.
Sri Krishna is no less than a hypocrite.
Once, Karna had asked, "Why is my caste that of a Suta? Why is there such caste discrimination? I was born into a royal household; why did I have to suffer like this?"
Then Sri Krishna had replied very smoothly, "I was also born into a royal household like you, yet I lived the life of a cowherd. Did I ever complain?"
If the real Karna had heard this, he would have believed it, but I will not trust this even one percent.
Talking about the life of a cowherd and the life of a Suta—there is a massive difference. Even though Sri Krishna's foster parents were cowherds, they were very wealthy, and Sri Krishna spent his whole life playfully.
And speaking of a Guru, when Karna begged to become a disciple of Guru Dronacharya, he was rejected on the grounds that he was a Suta.
If Sri Krishna were in my place and stated his caste as a cowherd, Dronacharya would have happily accepted him. Would caste have mattered to him then?
Not at all. He had once been a disciple of Parshurama; he would know who Sri Krishna is—the avatar of Lord Vishnu. Now, no one would say anything about caste.
....
I decided to absorb the blue sphere.
As soon as I touched the sphere, psychic energy began to flow into my body.
I felt a surge of energy filling me, and I could sense my mental powers strengthening significantly.
As a divine son, my latent mental strength was already immense, but I had lacked a way to access it. There was no key to open that door.
But now, this sphere had become the key to that lock, completely unleashing my formidable mental powers.
My beautiful black eyes slowly transformed into a glowing blue, a change I could not see myself at the moment.
After some time, I had completely absorbed the blue sphere, causing it to crumble into dust.
I realized that my body craved sleep. No matter how powerful my mind had become, my physical vessel was still that of an infant.
I need to quickly steer this basket to the shore, I thought. This will alter my fate, hopefully for the better compared to the original timeline.
I gathered my mental power, and my blue eyes began to glow.
Exerting all my strength, I fought against the flow of the river Ganga to pull myself out of the current.
I succeeded. I maneuvered myself to the riverbank and wedged the basket firmly against a rock so that the water's current would not sweep me away again.
My eyelids grew heavy; sleep was overtaking me. I did not fight it and soon drifted into a deep slumber.
To be continued...