Heron now a certified native of the land considering there was—well, no one else on the entire goddamn planet.

  Unless they were all underground having a party that he didn’t know about, but he doubted that.

  The sky was clear and the air was warmer today than it had the past week since Heron had been here, and he was glad that he had prioritized building his temporary wooden shelter. The shade was minimal but it was enough to keep him cool. Still, sweat dripped down the side of his temple as the invisible sun beat down generously into his campsite. Sitting in the wooden trough he had made—or rather, summoned from a nearby tree—Heron sighed as he nibbled on his carrot, staring into the sky.

  The white rabbit resting next to him was not interested in the small carrot that Heron had summoned for it.

  The small creature had been spending an unusual amount of time by Heron’s side, and Heron had not failed to notice the presence of the little thing. He found it peculiar that it was in proximity so often; he had thought prey animals were meant to be fearful of possible predators, but the rabbit seemed to have no such worries. Or perhaps Heron wasn’t threatening enough.

  In the past week, Heron had made a few improvements to what he had assumed would be a temporary campsite—but was rapidly turning into a home.

  His shelter was fully completed, the wooden beam rested between the two trees as wooden planks leaned against it, creating the bare minimum for a shelter. His stone fire pit was just a few meters away, which kept him warm whenever his clothes were drying from being washed. He had managed to make a wooden trough by summoning it from a tree and had filled it with a ton of summoned clipped grass to serve as bedding.

  Heron was beginning to live his best life. If he were a rabbit.

  While Heron ate his carrot, his mind wandered back to the events that had happened the past week. It had only been ten days since he had reincarnated into his second life, but time seemed to drag when his days became repetitive. Especially the past week when he had looped around the planet every. Single. Day.

  Heron had refused to believe the implications of when his pebble paths had intersected.

  The first time they had intersected, he couldn’t believe his eyes. But when the data kept showing up consistently day after day, when each and every path he made would intersect and cross as the same exact point, there was no way he could deny the evidence.

  First, the evidence that he was terribly good at walking in straight lines. Clearly that was his one talent.

  Second, this was a tiny planet. Like a floating island made of dirt.

  This wasn’t just any tiny planet. It was an uninhabited one—at least, from what Heron could tell. He had yet to come across another fellow human in this strange place. There were no signs of roads, villages, or traveling merchants. As the week had gone by, he had encountered more animals such as squirrels, birds, and other small creatures. But besides the smaller and prey-like animals, he had not seen much else.

  And thankfully, Heron had not stumbled upon any predators. He had been anticipating the possibility of encountering a fox or even a goblin, but no—the most threatening creature he’d seen was a raccoon. He found it odd that he had not met any animals that he would consider a predator, considering the imbalance of the ecosystem of how prey animals would overrun the place, but he didn’t question the logic twice. He was screwed if he met a wolf, let alone a pack of wolves. So he continued to pray he wouldn’t.

  Besides the creatures that roamed this planet, Heron found it rather disappointing by the lack of variety in environments. It made sense due to how small it was, but the place primarily thrived in grasslands and forests. He had come across a quarry at some point and a cave but besides those two, the only other notable feature was the one lake he’d been using. While he was interested in the cave, he didn’t dare venture in. He still had no access to a mobile light source after all. He could make a torch but he didn’t want to risk it.

  Besides, what good was a cave?

  At some point, Heron decided that he would eventually map out the planet, once he figured out if his energy was well used on paper and pencil when there were far more important things to use his energy on. Or if he would just continue exploring the planet until he memorized every tree, rock, and crevice.

  For now, he was satisfied practicing walking straight, confirming and investigating with the multi-directional paths he’d take to map out the planet from sheer experience alone.

  All in all, this lonely place was beginning to feel like home and Heron didn’t hate it one bit. Though he was lonely for company, this strange white rabbit appeared to refuse to leave his side. Only in seldom would it leave and hop off to who knows where, but it never failed to return. Even now, it was resting by his side like a guardian.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He’d also accidentally figured out that it was likely he was able to purify water.

  A few days ago, he’d decided to begin making more tools out of wood such as plates and bowls. But he didn’t have a dishwasher or soap. And it would be a waste to throw away the items he had made with magic. They weren’t free to make after all. So without a sink or the modern design of cleaning dishes, the best he could do was use his magic to clean off the potato smears leftover on his plates. Magic might’ve been handier and financially cheaper, it was still taxing on his body.

  With his plates cleaned, he was feeling more certain that the water was ‘clean’ as he was able to ‘purify’ his used plates. Because it wasn’t as simple as pushing off the leftover scraps or actually cleaning the plates, but rather when he did cast magic on his plate, there wasn’t a single speck of potato leftover. In fact, the plate often felt new after he had cast magic on it.

  So he wasn’t really cleaning the plate but rather ‘purifying’.

  While discovering he could have clean water was excellent, that wasn’t the best thing he had accomplished this past week. While it was a massive accomplishment, it had not come without risks. Besides the shelter and trough that he had completed, he had also created the riskiest item since he had begun living this life.

  He’d grown tired of only eating roasted potatoes and had started summoning other vegetables such as carrots and celery. It gave him a more balanced diet—as balanced as it could be with three different vegetables—and his taste buds had less to complain about. He had tried an apple but the energy had not been worth it. He’d felt nauseous afterward and decided to stick with vegetables.

  But that was not what had been so risky. The risky part was he ended up wanting to do with the vegetables.

  Because just yesterday, at the brink of the morning, he had awakened to an immense craving for soup.

  Soup was easy to make. Toss in a bunch of ingredients and it would typically serve him well. Filling, nutritious, and easy to flavor. At least, enough that it would satisfy Heron’s taste buds.

  The problem was that to make soup, he had to have a pot.

  So Heron had imagined the tiniest, smallest, simplest pot he could imagine. Something that would suffice his needs and wouldn’t kill him.

  It felt like it had nearly killed him.

  He had summoned the pot in the early morning of yesterday in hopes that it would be when he had the maximum magic energy possible in order to minimize the risk of either failure or, well, death. Heron didn’t remember the actual summoning part of it. One moment he had imagined the pot and focused hard on the creation of it. The next he woke up in the middle of the night, feeling severely ill.

  The symptoms of over magic energy consumption? Dry heaving, chills, cold sweats, and violent trembling. Like life itself had been drained from him. Or like a really, really bad flu.

  Either way, Heron had been successful but had paid a price too scary for him to attempt any other similar endeavors for a while. He also knew he would have to figure out where the line was when it came to casting magic. And if there was any way to increase his potential of casting it. He couldn’t stay weak forever if he wanted to live a better life.

  Now—in the present—after a crappy day before, Heron had decided to take the first day off in over a week of traversing over his planet. Old habits died hard and he’d essentially been working overtime, spending the entire day committed to surviving and finding new information. Today, he would take it easy while brainstorming what was next.

  And while he may have risked his life making the pot, it was so worth it.

  Before him by the fire, his pot was boiling, the steam wafting into the air as the scent of soup drifted to him. It was not energy efficient, but Heron was able to summon vegetables in a chopped state. He was not going to risk trying to summon a knife and cutting board. At least, not yet.

  A soup made of potatoes, carrots, and celery with salt to taste was keeping Heron happy and satisfied. Perhaps he had gotten used to the stress or worry that came with using magic, but his chest was filled with immense pride from how he felt about his accomplishments. He was surviving, one soup at a time.

  Though that didn’t stop him from feeling like a rabbit.

  For goodness sake, he had a wooden trough filled with grass for bedding. His diet consisted primarily of vegetables. He’d gone leaner over the week, and while Heron had always been on the leaner side, he knew he had to resolve his diet issue. Fast.

  Heron glanced towards the direction of the lake, his eyes catching the glimmer of the water from the light refracted. He knew there was fish in there. Now, he could deal with fish. It was only a matter of catching them. He’d fished before, but that was with store-bought fishing tools. He’d picked up the hobby after fishing from his farming game. Too bad he hadn’t gotten to fish all that much due to all the overtime he did and never took any time off.

  Perhaps this was the day that he would try to fish. The problem was that he knew he wasn’t capable of generating a full fishing rod. At least, not like the ones that were made in his first life. As he poured his soup from the tiny pot into his wooden bowl, he blew on the steam and ate with his wooden spoon.

  Likely the solution was to fish with equipment that was sub-standard but use normal bait. But whether he could summon bait or not was an entirely different question. While melon bread was clearly too complex, Heron did eventually cave and try to summon milk.

  But nothing had happened.

  And he wasn’t sure if it was because nothing could happen or rather that if magic would kill him, his body wouldn’t allow it. Which would be very handy to know if that was the truth because then he had a lot less to fear when it came from using too much magic energy. Had he realized that milk—which seemed simple enough—could have maybe killed him, he would not have attempted.

  Which led him to the belief that anything that was an animal product either could not be summoned or would kill him if he tried summoning it. He didn’t dare try to summon butter or cheese or meat after that milk attempt. It was like a warning that his soul seemed to speak to him before his mind or even body did.

  So for summoning bait, he was going to have to figure out how to do so without it being an animal product.

  Perhaps he would just summon a shovel and find some worms and be done with it. Which was very likely what he would set out to do today.