The next morning was more serious drama than Prashant would ever like, confirming his suspicion that the negative effects negating the achievement title did not have any effect. So, apart from the reality of time travel, he has to factor occasional haunting into daily life. Prashant used his unusual optimism as his saving grace and decided to do what he did best. Understanding everything thrown at him as systems, institutions and trends. So yes, our reborn protagonist will completely dehumanise the world in a gambit to retain his sanity. The only good thing is that he thinks he won't become a cold-blooded machine who goes on a killing spree; he will merely be a cold-blooded machine who focuses on optimising systems, reorienting institutions for liberal ideology, and slightly nudging historical trends to reduce friction from whatever he wants to achieve and the reality.
As a starting move, he made an inventory of everything he had at hand. One guy from the future, one cheat system, one possible wildcard who may or may not hack the said cheat with name M, one possibly spirit tenant girl, one sarcastic Rajput uncle bodyguard and all living in his HQ, the courtyard. First things, he needs wealth, although he can just spawn coins if he looks through cheats, he would rather believe in embedding himself in the social economy, and that way amassing wealth. India always had literal tons of gold gathering dust in royal treasuries, temple vaults, family hoards, and simply forgotten wealth buried somewhere.
What he is going to do is appropriately increase the velocity of money in the markets. Yeah, technical economics! But in normal terms, it means he will be buying and selling things, not for any goal other than just being there so other people will have a reliable buyer for their goods, hence keeping the price in their favour. And a supplier of goods, preferably only the basic goods like food, clothes and strategic items like agricultural tools, weapons, and everything else that could improve their production capacity. And the velocity part means instead of using cheats, he will simply use plain money to have others produce, say, agricultural tools for him, he will buy them for a higher price, so they produce more. Prashant will take the tools and sell them at cheaper prices, so the consumers will produce their goods more easily now. It might look like an invisible controller of the market or even a planned economy, but Prashant knows India doesn't do absolutes. So he will only take say 10% slice in transactions, someone who signals trends rather than being an actual controller.
For that, he will need people, and he would rather not bother himself with many others. Prashant is going to put the Rajput uncle in charge of selling incense to the temple; he won't protest, it's literally god's work. A defender of tradition like him will be happily manipulated by a modern cynic as a sales contact person for this particular customer, the goddess herself. With a large bag of incense and a separate offering for the temple, Rajput's uncle took the quest. While Prashant went to meet his trusty friend in this dark world, the proprietor of Dharmashala. So deep is their friendship that Prashant never even bothered to remember the other party's name.
He left the courtyard at what appeared to be a calm pace, but only Prashant knew he was praying so hard that he wouldn't meet his tenant. Eating the meal at a very familiar table, where he made an oopsie and invited a less than savoury mate as his housemate, Prashant sold a bag of entire saffron and sandalwood. He never bothered with money; rather, he asked a trusty blacksmith who would be open to long-term business deals. If the town has a guild of them, then it's even better. And so Prashant and Navin, the proprietor, came to a large building. The arch carried the title in golden script, 'Lohar Shreni', nine out of ten, the golden part is literal gold used as one would use ink on paper. Such was the wealth just lying around.
Prashant had one clear goal: make a long-term deal where they make agricultural tools for him, and crucially, don't mind him selling them off. Here comes the role of cynics, as it turns out, they will easily exploit any kind of societal behaviour without actually believing it themselves. His idea, one story. A nobleman was happy once, but then he stopped being happy. One pandit (teacher/priest) said that if he does a specific kind of charity, he will return to being happy. And the oh-so-noble man? That's Prashant by some strange coincidence. Indians do love stories with past lives, karmic justice and happy endings. No matter the era.
During the actual negotiation, that story part went extremely easily. The struggle was the part where Prashant had to work very hard to control himself from trying to show off his plagiarised knowledge as advice. He decided not to change any technology for now, simply because there is no impending need for now. The only thing India truly lacked at this point in history was interest in a navy buildup for power projection. In the rest of the aspects, systematically, nothing was hindering them. Having better things will surely push them even further, but there are times when one should push forward and times when one should simply sit down. Prashant has learned this deep philosophy through years of queuing for all kinds of things in India. From polio dose to college admission to a license to marriage. Surely, Buddha too will agree to this great truth.
"Mission accomplished, huh? That was very hard. Now comes to pull a trick, I'll walk openly among the people in town. Let's see if the local powerful people have taken notice of me. If someone makes an attempt on my life, I'll use that to establish prestige. I've even prepared all the plans to deal with the aftermath. The story will go like this: A noble prince from a different land came to this town after a dream of a goddess. He made the incredibly difficult journey through hills, jungles, adverse weather threats, jealous rivals and bodily harm and finally reached the blessed land. Well, technically, I'm not lying, just misrepresenting the scale of struggle. And just when he was about to enter the temple, one vile villain attacked the devotee. The prince, in his wisdom, foiled the plan but spared the aggressor in an incredible display of maryada (restraint). Surely, some people still take Kshatriya virtues seriously. There you go, point made, nobody actually got hurt, and people got their drama." Prashant is just too good at choreographing his assassination, its court verdict and the eventual news report. Antihero, just in another sense.
Sadly, all this came to nothing. Frustrated at society for its incompetence, Prashant went to meet the temple trust elders. He is going to set up a system that uses the temple's legitimacy; he will send free farming tools in small quantities to nearby villages. Dongarwadi will surely get a personal delivery. Personal, as in with personal care delivered by Rajput bodyguard #12 with implied love. In the evening, Peashant was back "home" with his "family". "Hmm, how come Cheat never gave me anything for so long. Usually, my activity, regardless of any direct reason, would trigger a notification. How come this WhatsApp has become quiet suddenly? Last time, a harmless joke with a donkey gave me an achievement. I've been juggling two spirits, fooling one bodyguard uncle, making lifelong friendships with Naval, I totally meant Navin, and generally setting up a Ponzi scheme in town to take over. So basically mafia. Back in modern times, I would have already received three interview requests, a Netflix email with a contract for selling my biopic rights, an invitation to join politics, and a police summons for the one time I threw plastic on the road."
[Achievement unlocked: Trying to be funny (Ghosts like to hear your stories)]
"Yeah, I'm thrilled. Just want to celebrate by jumping down the seventh floor if there were any."
[M: 10 points awarded]
"Add all to my constitution. I'm going to sleep, I'm sure ghosts believe in the superstition that waking a sleeping person will reduce your lifespan."
[Name: Prince Prashant Patil
S: 8, C: 23, M: 1, L: 10 ]