Chapter 3: Magic

  Mana is energy.

  My parents were exhausted after dealing with the crate, so just like RPG games, it seems like everyone has a mana pool.

  Mana can be used to create things from nothing, just as Tessa filled the crate with water that we didn’t have. But… we have running water.

  Why didn’t she fill the crate with water, then freeze that?

  The only explanation I can come up with is that the water she created was more easily adaptable into ice, maybe because she made it herself, or maybe because the water already had her mana in it.

  Over the past 2 years, I’ve seen my mother use magic to move water she didn’t create herself, so it’s not impossible.

  What’s also important to note is that just as mana can be imbued in objects, it can also be utilized in your own body.

  My father clearly has the ability to use mana to strengthen his muscles and perform superhuman acts. It seems like magic on its own is not a rare commodity in this world.

  Another fact I’m thankful for is the lack of incantations. I had always found them tacky and the cliche of the MC being able to cast incantation-less magic is played out.

  Besides the few pieces about magic I’ve learned, I’m finally able to talk with my parents.

  Sure I can act a bit like a prodigy, but I don’t know what revealing I’m reincarnated would entail for me, so I’m just going to keep that one under wraps at the moment.

  I shuffled down the giant steps and out the back-door, into the garden.

  Because this spring had not been particularly rainy, I noticed Tessa watering the plants using her magic.

  Her black dress and hair slowly shook in the wind, and her slender fingers stretched out amongst the plants as the water from her palm sprinkled across them. The flow was much more intentional than when she fills the crate, or boils some water.

  Now was my chance.

  “Mommy? What are you doing?”

  The flow stopped. Tessa’s head turned to look at me and her lips curved. She quickly returned to an upright position which caused her curly hair to spring up.

  She crossed her arms and raised her right hand to her cheek, touching her face as she does whenever she’s in deep thought.

  “Good morning, Vespera. This is called magic.” Her proper use of grammar was always much more helpful than baby-talk and helped speed up my study of it tremendously.

  “Magic?” I played dumb and took a few steps closer.

  “Yes! Mana is inside every person in the world. We use mana for magic and it makes life easier.” She gestured towards the plants.

  “Do I have mana?”

  “Of course you do. Whenever you walk, you use mana in your body. Every living thing has mana.” She took her own steps towards me and knelt down, pointing to my heart.

  “Your core wouldn’t beat without mana, so without it, you couldn’t be alive.”

  Her eyes were stern, clearly trying to make this a teaching moment, but her face still held the motherly love I always knew from her.

  Tessa’s words were comforting to me in a way she didn’t know. Not because I thought I would grow up to be a mana-less loser, but because another fear of mine was to be living the isekai cliche of being an overpowered kid without mana who is looked down upon. Phew!

  Then again… I am running out of ideas of what my gift might be. I must have one right?..

  “How do I use magic? I want to water the garden like you, mommy!”

  She smiled even wider, clearly pleased, but looked in the distance and took a moment to contemplate her answer. Finally, she looked back at me.

  “Vespera, magic is a feeling. If you come out here to the garden and feel the wind on your face, then eventually you will know where the mana inside of you is.

  And if you spend enough time in love with the plants and wanting to water them, then eventually the water will spill out of you and you won’t be able to stop until the job is done.

  If you want to accomplish something, then you need to surround yourself in it.”

  As I thought, magic in this world is tied to a feeling, not words for incantations or spells from grimoires.

  What’s slightly more surprising is how tied to nature magic seems to be.

  Will simply feeling the wind on my face and loving the plants give me the results I want?

  Seeing as I know nothing about this world, I decided to give it a try.

  I spent hours every day in the garden and small forest that was still fenced into our backward to keep animals off our crops.

  Tessa was there often too, enjoying the sunlight and breeze, thrilled over my excitement with magic.

  Through my days there, I noticed that the sun never left. Its rise and fall always illuminated the backyard.

  Had the house been rotated any other way, its shadow would cover the crops. It must have been intentional.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  As I learned about this world, I noted its similarities and differences with Earth.

  It has 1 sun and 1 moon and the days and nights felt normal. Days must have been close to 24 hours, but who knows since they don’t use hours as measurement here.

  As I noted before, vegetation was extremely similar to Earth and the humans that I’ve seen don’t look or feel any different.

  I made sure to follow my mother’s instruction and lay in the garden, feeling the wind blow over my cheeks and nose. My flowing hair mirrored my mother’s hue but my father’s straight texture.

  When I focus on the feeling the breeze casts on my face, I begin to understand what mana is. It moves along with my blood, coming from my heart, or my core as my mother calls it.

  It powers my legs, brain, and leaves my body as heat, keeping me warm. As it’s used (which is constantly since it’s used just to keep me alive), it is replaced or regenerated in my core.

  How is it regenerating? Maybe through ingested calories? Maybe this is just the law of this world that life force can supply energy to itself?

  But this world feels natural. It feels real. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Mana regeneration needs to come from somewhere because mana is a logical science.

  With my understanding of mana slightly improved this week, I began to understand the plants.

  “Every living thing has mana.” I guess that’s what made the plants so easy to understand. This energy was familiar.

  I had felt it in my parents, and our visitors: a warmth that persisted despite the temperature.

  Since the plants were alive, they had mana too. It more subtle than the humans I’ve seen, but it was there. I was more in tune with nature this week than I ever was, so it was obvious.

  According to my mother, there was only one other piece of the puzzle that she mentioned. Love.

  We are clearly country-folk. From what I can tell, magic is kind of like playing the piano.

  You can “feel” the instrument, play it, but some people can do it better than others. But for the vast majority of people, you need to study it and learn music theory. Some “feeling” is great but in reality that feeling is just an application of something you haven’t studied yet.

  I say that and yet I spent days amongst nature and wind and my understanding of magic improved just with that. Maybe there really is a connection between mana and nature.

  Anyway, with that said, I’m sticking with logic, so I feel as though “love” really means “understand”, so I spent a couple more days studying the plants in our garden.

  I gently touch the base, stems, leaves, and fruits, the last of which being the most interesting. Mana was spread inside the plants, but it always tends to concentrate in the growing fruit!

  This might answer the question of how mana regenerates in a person. Not only do you gain nutrients from eating, but also mana as it digests.

  The only part left to study was the roots, but I couldn’t just ring it out the ground. At this point I had only been able to detect magic while touching the thing that expelled it.

  I don’t have a lot of hope for this, but it’s worth a try.

  I bring my hand to the ground feeling the soil in between my fingers.

  I don’t feel any roots. Of course not, I mean they must be at least half a foot away and I’ve needed to touch the objects so far. The only thing I can touch now is the soil and it is…

  It’s expelling mana. Only a small amount, and I guess it makes sense.

  Animals and plants must have died in this soil and it created a nutrient-rich product, but at the same time a mana-rich one as well.

  Considering I doubt humans eat soil in order to gain mana, there must also be a connection between mana and food. It seems you can only gain mana from eating things that your body can actually process.

  Understanding this unlocked the final puzzle piece in my mind. I can’t believe I never thought of it before, it’s so obvious now…

  As animals gain energy from plants, so do plants from the sun! If the correlation between energy and mana is really that closely knit then—

  I remove my hand from the soil and turn it upward, letting the sun’s rays rest upon it.

  I already know I don’t have enough mana to cast any magic. I don’t think it’s normal for 2 year olds to cast magic in this world. But with the sun in my hands I feel the mana it leaves behind floating in the air.

  It’s unmoving, unbothered by wind or any other external elements.

  It just floats there. Patiently. Waiting.

  My core pumps mana through my body as a heart pumps blood. Has anyone thought of pulling the magic in instead of pushing it out?

  Of course I’m not going to do that with my own body. Assuming I even could, that might kill me.

  Instead, I apply that principle to the outside.

  I feel the sun’s mana in my hand, and invite it in. I can’t absorb it as it seems my mana pool is at its limit, but I can keep it there, concentrated in my palm.

  All that’s left is to utilize it.

  I keep holding onto the belief that magic is a logical science and some of the evidence I’ve found supports that theory, but some of the evidence I’ve found challenges it.

  In this moment, I decide to abandon facts and logic and to focus on my mother’s theory of nature and love.

  How else would you create water anyway? I can’t imagine taking mana and logically building hydrogen and oxygen atoms in succession to create water. What I can imagine is water itself.

  With water on my mind, I use the small amount of mana I have and spread it among the sun’s mana which I had invited in.

  I feel it more clearly now just as if it were mine. I had claimed it.

  And now. Push.

  There it was. Water flew out from my palm and drenched a plant and… it ended.

  It was a good 1 second of flow, but it’s not surprising since I had only called on a small amount of mana in the air.

  What I need to do is call on mana while expelling it at the same time. With a bit more practice, I had it.

  I can only manage a flow slightly less than my mother’s but I can do it and it is something I can practice.

  I finally managed to use magic!

  Wait, that’s not all.

  Now that I think about it, my parents were exhausted after using magic and yet I feel fine.

  I barely used any magic of my own, I mostly used what was suspended in the air thanks to the sun and small mana excretions from plants and animals which ultimately came from the sun.

  If my parents had this ability then they would have used it.

  It’s possible that my parents are low-level magicians, which I do think is the case since they are simple villagers without combat experience from what I can tell.

  So it’s possible that higher ranked magicians have this ability, but there’s also a chance that this is it. This is the overpowered trait that I was sure I was due.

  “Vespera!” Tessa had seen me from the door, ran towards me, and picked me up in one giant motion. We giggled in celebration.

  Mother got me to show Cedric too who was just as impressed, but didn’t have the same expression. I could tell that he was concerned about something.

  “You’re special, Vespy.” My mother’s calmness opposed my father. “I bet you could count on one hand the magicians capable of antimagic.”

  Hah! So it is rare!

  But why is my father so concerned? What could be a negative?

  We seem to live in a nice peaceful town, but… maybe the world isn’t.

  Am I going to be turned into a war animal the second the government finds out?

  Tessa’s smile didn’t waver. She was my only reassurance.

  And with this new-found ability, I know my future is going to be a fun one filled with adventure. I couldn’t ask for anything more different than my previous life.

  I actually want to live this one.

  “Cedric, we have to get her a tutor!”