Late in the spring, as dusk began to settle, the gulmohar trees that lined both sides of the school road were in full bloom.
The sunset cast a warm glow across the sky, and the gentle evening breeze carried the sweet fragrance of red flowers, which cascaded down like rain, filling the air with their intoxicating scent.
In the midst of this picturesque scene, a boy of about eighteen or nineteen years old could be seen walking along the school road.
The boy's name was Surya, and he was walking along the concrete path, which was covered with fallen petals. His progress was intermittent, as he frequently stopped and started after checking his phone periodically.
At a glance, he seemed to be just your usual, ordinary Pokémon GO player, but on closer inspection, perhaps he was not.
Mumbling to himself, he said, "It seems to be nearby."
Sure enough, Surya was indeed playing a mobile game that utilised AR effects, but it was not the widely known Pokémon GO. Instead, the game he was engrossed in was called "Bhoot Katha," which translates to "Ghost Stories."
It was a very strange name for a game, and the game itself was proving to be just as peculiar.
The application had suddenly appeared on Surya's phone for no apparent reason, and perplexingly, no relevant information about it could be found on the internet.
He had tried every search engine he could think of, scrolled through obscure app forums, and even checked Reddit threads dedicated to mysterious mobile games.
Nothing. It was as if the app existed only on his device, a digital ghost haunting his phone alone.
What was even more strange, however, was that there seemed to be no way to uninstall it from his phone either. The usual long-press and delete option didn't work.
The app settings showed no uninstall button. Even factory reset warnings appeared whenever he tried to force-remove it through his phone's system settings.
Upon opening the game, a flat, street-view map would appear, prompting the player to travel to a specific location in reality, a mechanic very similar to Pokémon GO.
Only by reaching the designated location could you officially start the game.
And as it happened, "Bhoot Katha" had marked a location right at the Delhi Public School where Surya was currently a student.
Driven by the exciting idea that "this might be the standard golden finger for transmigrators," Surya decided to start the game, feeling a certain sense of luck on his side.
After all, in every web novel he'd ever read back in his previous life, mysterious systems and strange opportunities always appeared for people like him.
Oh yes, it should be mentioned that Surya was, in fact, your typical transmigrator.
He had died in his original world at twenty-three, hit by a truck while saving a child, and woken up in this body roughly a year ago with all his memories intact.
Following the intermittent tips provided by "Bhoot Katha," Surya checked his position one last time before moving five meters to his right, which brought him to face the trunk of a large gulmohar tree.
His shoes crunched softly against the carpet of fallen petals, each step releasing their faint perfume into the cooling air.
Buzz.
Suddenly, as if on cue, the phone began to vibrate, and a new message appeared on the screen.
[Start the game]
A start button appeared on the "Bhoot Katha" app's user interface.
"Finally," he breathed.
His heart rate picked up slightly, a familiar mixture of anticipation and caution settling in his chest.
This was it. Whatever happened next would either prove this was his destined opportunity or reveal it as an elaborate prank.
Feeling a mix of nervousness, excitement, and a little bit of an unspeakable expectation, Surya's finger decisively pressed the start button.
The next moment, the phone screen went... black.
Surya swiped the screen a few times and then repeatedly pressed the power button, but there was absolutely no response.
It was as if the phone had turned into a useless brick in that very instant.
"Are you kidding me?"
Surya cried out internally, believing he had been fooled.
That was eight hundred dollars down the drain. His parents were going to kill him if he had to explain how his brand new phone had mysteriously died while he was playing some weird game he couldn't even properly describe.
As he turned his eyes away from the dead phone with a look of pain on his face, convinced he had been played, he suddenly realised that the surrounding environment seemed to have changed just a little bit.
The setting sun, which had just been hanging in the west like a golden orb, had at some point completely fallen below the horizon.
Having lost the sun's warm afterglow, the surroundings suddenly became dim, and the scenery looked as if it had been put through some kind of dark filter.
Even the originally brilliant gulmohar trees seemed to have lost all of their vibrant colours.
The red flowers now appeared almost black in the strange twilight, their petals looking less like celebration and more like warnings scattered across his path.
"Something seems to be wrong here."
Surya lowered his head once more and saw that there was now something new resting under the trunk of the gulmohar tree he was facing.
It was a small clay diya, a traditional oil lamp. It was hard to tell what was placed inside it, but from within, tiny yellow-green lights were flickering faintly.
The flame danced without any apparent source of fuel, its sickly glow casting strange shadows on the bark of the tree.
"This thing wasn't here just now. How did it suddenly appear?"
He noted that all the changes around him had happened suddenly, right after he pressed the start button of the game.
After confirming this fact, Surya unexpectedly felt a sense of relief, realising that he might not have been fooled by someone after all.
It seemed that for transmigrators, any strange occurrence could be accepted, allowing them to become calm in almost any situation.
The impossibility of the situation somehow made it more believable rather than less.
In his old world, such things couldn't happen.
But in a world where he had already died once and woken up in another body, what was one more impossibility?
"Perhaps I have that 'Player's Mind' skill within me," he thought.
Thinking of it jokingly, he raised the seemingly dead phone in front of him once again.
The phone screen, which had previously gone completely dark, began to slowly display some text. Lines appeared one by one, as if being typed by invisible fingers.
The only issue was that the text appeared to be written in blood, giving it a distinctly horrifying vibe.
The letters seemed to pulse slightly, as though they carried a heartbeat of their own.
[Map unlocked: Delhi Public School.]
After he clicked on the notification, new text appeared.
[Game loading complete. Before you start your journey in this world, please choose one item from the following three options to obtain]
Surya's breath caught in his throat. This was it. The classic beginner gift package.
Every game, every system, every golden finger started like this. His choice here might determine everything that followed.
[Name: Ganga Jal (Sacred Water)]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Effect: Purification is greatly improved after use, and it comes with a certain probability of understanding water breathing.]
[Description: This is sacred water from the River Ganges, which has been long treasured by someone. Unfortunately, only half a bottle remains now, but it can be used for drinking or for ritual purification.]
"Sacred water for purification... that's quite practical, actually," he mused. His mind immediately went to various supernatural stories where holy water had proven invaluable.
Ghosts, spirits, possessed objects, all the usual suspects would be vulnerable to something like this.
The water breathing aspect was intriguing too, though he couldn't immediately imagine when he'd need to breathe underwater.
Still, practical didn't necessarily mean powerful, and this was supposed to be his starting advantage.
[Name: Hanuman's Sacred Shoes]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Effect: After being equipped, the wearer can increase their movement speed to a certain extent, allowing them to move with the power and speed of the wind.]
[Description: An ancient shoe completely covered in sacred vermillion, which has been blessed by years of devotion to the deity Hanuman. Because it is imbued with divine energy, it is no longer an ordinary item.]
Surya considered the item. "All covered in vermillion powder... it looks quite divine, actually."
The second option certainly seemed decent, but Surya was not entirely convinced just yet.
Speed was always useful. In any dangerous situation, being able to run faster than your opponent could mean the difference between life and death.
But again, it felt like a defensive choice, something to help him escape rather than confront.
[Name: Panchmukhi Art (Incomplete)]
[Quality: Excellent]
[Effect: After learning, you will master the Panchmukhi Lightning Art (incomplete)]
[Description: This is a special option born according to your soul's origin. It is an ancient tantric art, and after studying it, you can summon brilliant lightning to aid you in battle. However, due to its serious state of incompleteness, much of the art's power is lost. Perhaps you can find a way to complete this technique in the future.]
Upon seeing this message, Surya did not need to hesitate for even a second before he resolutely chose the Fragments of the Panchmukhi Art from among the three options.
His finger moved almost on instinct, tapping the screen before his conscious mind had even finished reading the description.
As a transmigrator whose soul originated from modern times, and having been an avid game enthusiast in his previous life, he felt that even hesitating for a single second would be disrespectful to the promising words "Special Option" and "Ancient Tantric Art" that were featured in the description.
This was the path of growth, the classic protagonist choice. Sure, it was incomplete now, but that just meant there was a quest line attached to it, a journey to undertake.
The other two options were finished items with fixed power. This one had potential, had a ceiling he couldn't even see yet.
Every instinct honed by years of gaming told him this was the correct choice.