Aariv was on his horse, riding to the main gate 1. He had come out of the Royal district and was now in the Administrative district which housed all the public service offices. He took a right from there towards the little market.

The roads were wide and there were columns of trees planted on both sides of the road. There was no cement in the current era, so all the buildings were made of wood and mud. Many of them were 2 and 3 stories.

Most of the Patliputra city was built with wood and mud, even the royal palace. The city walls were also made of wood, but still, the whole city looked beautiful and noble because of all the decorations and stone carvings.

The roads did not feel crowded as most of the merchant caravans were redirected from gates to another bypass route which led straight to the designated city market and trading docks.

(If you want to see the illustrations of the capital city Patliputra, then join my discord server)

Aariv came to a small intersection, which also had many small shops. Ranging from ration stores, clothing shops to blacksmith shops. He originally had planned to not stop, but when he saw the blacksmith shop, he decided to pay a visit. He had something in his mind that he wanted to be made.

Because the small market was in the middle of the residential districts, only the best shops in the city were allowed to be opened there, so the quality was guaranteed.

He tied the horse in the horse stall nearby and went to the shop that had a nice steel sword posted on the wall for the showcase. The door was open, so he walked in without knocking.

A man about 20 years old was standing behind a wooden table in front of which some chairs were put in a neat row. Aariv understood that it must be the waiting area for the customers, as he saw 10 chairs, he guessed that the shop must have a lot of people going throughout the day but currently it was empty.

When the young man saw someone entering the shop he excitedly stood up to welcome the 1st customer of the day, but to his disappointment, it was just a little kid.

He was a new apprentice under the master blacksmith. It was a rule in the shop that every newcomer apprentice had to work as a receptionist for 5 months.

The job called receptionist was very new to him as he had been to many shops, but no one hired a person just to greet customers. He had been doing this for a month now and many times, some kids would come to see the swords. It was fine if they wanted to look, but who the hell comes this early in the morning. He was really annoyed when he saw Aariv.

"Come in the afternoon kid, now is business hour." He said as he waved his hand to shoo Aariv.

Aariv had just entered the shop, he was appreciating the design and beauty of the shop. He wanted to meet the designer but then heard the guy yelling at him and shooing him away. Aariv didn't know what to make of it.

"Hahaha... Is he stupid? He's literally asking for instant death by misbehaving with a royal prince," Juno said. It was a rare occurrence when she did not make fun of Aariv.

"Well, maybe he doesn't know my identity and I doubt anyone else knows my identity either. Because considering mother's overprotectiveness, she must have not allowed my face to be painted.

By the way Juno, what are you doing watching the mortal world? Don't you have some show or movie to watch." Aariv asked with interest because Juno was acting a bit strange.

"Wa... no... nothing... The movie and show's storyline got very repetitive, so I decided to take a break and maybe... Help you out," she replied.

Aariv still had his suspicions but decided to investigate later because the shooing man had started speaking again.

"Hey, kid, you deaf or something, I said come in the even..."

He was interrupted when Aariv took out his money pouch from his pocket and scooped a handful of panas from it. He showed his hand holding lots of gold and silver panas.

"I want to buy something, call your boss," Aariv said with a heavy voice.

The guy's eyes nearly came out of his eye sockets when he saw so much money. He understood that the kid was from a very rich family and knew that he made a grave mistake. If he doesn't do something, then who knows which gutter his dead body will end up in.

He hurriedly bowed and went inside the door leading to the forging area. He truthfully told everything to his boss. His boss scolded him and told him to follow and properly apologize.

Aariv was waiting for the main guy to come and soon he saw a 6 foot tall and bulky middle-aged bearded man come out of the door with the shooing guy following him.

"I apologize for what happened, Mr....?" The old man said while hinting to tell his name.

"Aa..."

Aariv was about to give his name but was suddenly interrupted by Juno's loud screams.

"Oh my gosh, look... Look Aariv, to your left in that vase," She said cheerfully, They both still talked to each other in English, so when Aariv looked at the vase in his left he instinctively spoke loudly in English.

"Sunflower?"

"Yes, Mr. Sunflower, my apprentice would like to apologize to you for his misbehavior," the middle-aged man said as he pushed the shooing guy forward.

Aariv had a surprised face listening to everything, he had become Sunflower Maurya from Aariv Maurya(Maurya is his surname). He thought that it was Juno's new joke, but when he focused on Juno, he heard her still talking to the sunflower.

~Awwww, It's so pretty. I wish I could touch it~ She said to herself.

Not having any reason to get angry at her, he decided to correctly tell them his name but.

"I am deeply ashamed of how I behaved with you a while ago. Please forgive me, mister Sunflower" He prostrated and apologized.

~It feels like he's an insulting me~ Aariv thought to himself.

He ignored his frustration, ignored the guy and started talking about why he came there.

"Can you make something for me?" He asked.

"As long as it is something that requires a blacksmith, I can make it. By the way, my name's Ripu Borkar." Blacksmith replied.

Aariv nodded and took out a folded parchment from his pocket and showed it to him. "I want you to make this thing, It needs to be made of steel sheets. The dimensions and the detailed diagrams are in it. Tell me, can you make it?"

Ripu looked at the diagrams for a minute.

"This is quite easy to make but very time-consuming. Why do you need this, sir? We have many good quality boxes of this size, you can choose any of them." Ripu said.

Aariv shook his head.

"No, I only want this. Just tell me how much it will cost and how much time will it take you to make?" He asked straightforwardly.

"Ah... it will cost you around 50 silver panas and it will take about 6 days to make it," Ripu said, scratching his head.

But Aariv was not satisfied, he was planning to come back from the jungle in 3 days and he needed the box by then.

"I'll give you 2 gold panas if you make it in 3 days," Aariv said as he pulled out 2 gold panas.

Everyone loved money, even more so when it was easy money. Ripu knew that if he crunched some extra hours, then he would be able to make it.

"Deal, you can take it in 3 days." He said with a wide grin.

"Good, here is the advance. The rest will be paid after completion," Aariv said as he handed out 1 gold pana.

After everything was done, Aariv started to walk out of the shop.

"Happy doing business with you, Mister Sunflower," the shooing guy said instinctively.

Aariv looked back at the shooing guy with angry eyes, which made the guy nearly wet his pants.

But Aariv controlled himself and walked away. When he was walking out, the sword hanging on his back was seen by the blacksmith, who seemed very surprised and happy seeing it.

"Interesting," he said and went back to work.

...

Aariv was on the back of the horse once again, heading to the city gate 1. He reached the main gate through the main road. When he reached the city checkpoint, he saw 4 huge watchtowers made of wood. They were probably 40 feet(12 meters) high and were connected to the 30 foot(9 meters) boundary walls which surrounded the whole city.

When he crossed the city gate, he saw a lot of people lining up to enter the city. Guards were checking their identity cards and their luggage. Aariv easily passed the gates as there was no security check for people going out of the city except for merchant caravans.

When Aariv crossed the walls, he was greeted by a beautiful view of the boundless lands, trees, and some mountains very far away. He noted that the whole city was surrounded by a moat that was 160 feet wide and 45 feet deep according to the history he knew. The moat was connected to the rivers and the sewage of the city was also directed to the moat.

The city's shape was that of a parallelogram. It was situated at the confluence of the Ganges, Gandhaka, and Son rivers, Pataliputra formed a "water fort". Its position also helped it dominate the riverine trade of the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Aariv crossed the bridge to start his 3-hour long journey to the forest's entrance, but once again he stopped because he saw something that infuriated him.

There were slums hidden on both sides of the road. The road was cleared by the guards and many 2-3 story wooden houses were built alongside the road to hide the slums in the back, to keep the image of a flourishing city clean.

Aariv made a detour and went inside the slums with his horse. He saw malnourished men, women, and kids. Dirt everywhere as there was no sewage system. These people were mainly slaves and the unspoken 5th classification of the caste 'the untouchables'. Many shudra(peasants, farmers and manual workers) were also living there.

These people were not allowed to live in the city because they belonged to the unholy caste. They were the cleaners and manual workers of the city, who were only allowed to enter the city if there was work for them.

Their homes were basically thatched huts. In winters, many of them would die due to cold and in rain, their homes would leak water.

Then Aariv looked at the main road at the end of the slum and felt his blood boil, looking at the scene. Malnourished little kids run after caravans in the hope that maybe some kind merchant would throw a pana.

Then it struck him. He had really forgotten about the real problems of the current era, living in the palace made him blind to the vicious nature of humans. A farmer's son could only become a farmer, a cleaner's son could only become a cleaner. There was no equal opportunity, there was no equality. It was not 3500 A.D... It was a world of barbarians.